out for a certain number of years for a stipulated compensation, to be paid to the parent at the end of that period. In no nation, either ancient or modern, has slavery existed under so mild a form, and guarding the rights and persons of the slaves with such jealous care, as among the ancient Hebrews. These topics, and some to which we have not had space to allude, were discussed in the opening lecture. In his second, the learned Professor drew a portrait of the illustrious Hebrew sage and law-giver, developed the general policy of his laws, and traced the obligations of other nations, in their legislation and philosophy, to his institutes. Moses was described as possessing, in an eminent degree, all those endowments, natural and acquired, which form the character of a consummate chief magistrate of a nation; an intellect of the highest order; a perfect mastery over all the civil wisdom of the age; a judgment cautious, penetrating, and farreaching in its combinations; great promptness and energy in action; patriotism that neither ingratitude nor rebellion could extinguish, or even cool; a persuasive eloquence; a hearty love of truth; an incorruptible virtue; and a freedom from selfish ambition, and a greatness of soul, in which none of the most admired heroes of ancient or modern times has ever surpassed him. These positions were proved and illustrated at large; and the lecturer concluded his sketch with a beautiful parallel between the military and civic character of MOSES and WASHINGTON; both were men whom their compatriots placed in the highest position, and both managed their authority so as to produce the 'greatest good of the greatest number.'

In entering upon his account of the political system of Moses, Mr. WINES insisted, with great earnestness, that all the essential principles of civil liberty and constitutional government were as thoroughly embodied in his constitution, as they are in ours; and in fact, that that great charter of human freedom, the DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, which, like the writing on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, has troubled the thoughts of many a tyrant, and caused his knees to smite one against the other, was but an echo from the deep thunders of Mount Sinai. His great maxims of policy were remarkably sound and judicious. The entire and absolute political equality of the whole body of citizens; the discouragement of a spirit of war and military conquest; the appointment of agriculture as the chief employment of the nation; the universal education of the people, especially in the knowledge of the history, constitution, and laws of their own country; a firm union of hearts and sentiments; and the indispensable necessity of a well-contrived and well-guarded system of checks and balances between the several departments of the government; these were the organic principles on which he founded his civil polity. The lecturer laid down the proposition broadly and without qualification, that there never was a nation, ancient or modern, in which the people stood upon so perfect a level in regard to political rights and influence as the Jews under the Constitution of Moses. Property in the soil is the natural foundation of power, and consequently of authority. Hence, the natural foundation of every government is laid in the distribution of its territory. If the prince own the lands, as was the case anciently in Egypt, and is now in many Eastern governments, such prince will be absolute; for the people, holding of him, and at his pleasure, will be in the condition of slaves rather than of free men. If the land be shared among a few men, the rest holding as vassals under them, as in the feudal system, the real power and authority of government will be in the hands of an aristocracy, or nobility, whatever power may be lodged in one or more persons, for the sake of greater unity in counsel and action. But if the lands be equally divided among all the members of a society, the true power of such government will reside in all the members of the society, and the society itself will constitute a real democracy, whatever form of union may be adopted for the better direction of the whole as a political body. Now this last is an exact description of the provision of the Hebrew constitution in reference to property in the soil. Moses legislated for a people without land, and who had their territories to gain at the point of the sword. He was not there. fore trammelled by any prescriptive rights, or long-established laws of inheritance. He was free to adopt any principle he might deem most expedient. The principle actually

chosen by him was that of the equal division of all the conquered territories among the whole six hundred thousand citizens; and to render this equality solid and permanent, the tenure was made inalienable, and the estates thus originally settled in each family, were to descend, by an indefeasible entail, in perpetual succession, to all the heirs-male of the original proprietors. Such was the oldest of Agrarian laws. The wisdom of this provision was most refined and admirable. It made extreme poverty and overgrown riches alike impossible, and thus annihilated one of the greatest sources and engines of ambition. It gave every member of the body politic an interest in the soil, and consequently in the maintenance of public order and the supremacy of law over mob violence. It elevated labor to its just dignity, by making the virtues of industry and frugality necessary elements in every man's character. It cut off the sources of luxury, that corruptor and bane of states, by denying the means of it, and took away the strongest incitement to it in the example of others. It served to keep up that original equality of the citizens, which was fundamental to the legislation of Moses, and altogether conformable to its strong democratic spirit and tendency. It rendered it impossible for any Israelite to be born to absolute poverty, for it gave to each his hereditary modicum of land; a garden, an orchard, or an olive-grove. In preventing poverty, it cut off the most prolific source of emigration, and thus preserved unimpaired the strength and vigor of the state. It tended strongly to perfect the science of agriculture. And, finally, it served to bind every Hebrew to his native soil by almost indissoluble ties, and gave to the sentiment of patriotism an almost passionate fervor and intensity. The entire political equality of the citizens was proved by various other arguments, and illustrated with great copiousness of detail.

The system of checks and balances between the several powers of government, provided by the constitution of Moses, evinced the deepest political wisdom, and a most patriotic regard to the public liberties. History is full of proofs that restless and ambitious spirits are the growth of all times and nations. Now there are two principal methods of preventing the evils of ambition; either to take away the common occasions of ambitious views, or to make the execution of them difficult and hazardous. The Hebrew constitution made both these provisions in a manner equal, if not superior, to any known constitution of government in the world. Never did legislator labor with such eagle-eyed jealousy as Moses, to preserve the people from the dangers of illbalanced power, or guard the public liberty with so many and so admirably-contrived defences against the projects of factions and restless ambition. We regret that we cannot follow the learned lecturer through his earnest and unanswerable argument in support of these positions. All who heard it will yield a full assent to the remark with which he concluded it, that the provisions of the Hebrew government to prevent faction and ambition incomparably surpass all the constitutions of the famed Spartan law-giver for the same purpose, so celebrated in ancient story; nor would they have missed their praise, had they been published by a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Numa, or indeed by any body but Moses. The great principles of the Jewish law early became known to the contemporaneous nations, and were powerfully felt in modifying their political institutions, their philosophical opinions, and their moral practices. This influence was traced in the clearest manner by Professor WINES, in respect both to ancient and modern nations. He drew his proofs from the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia; from the history of the Egyptian Ptolemies; from the writings of Hermippas, Theophrastus, Clearchus, Longinus, and even Aristotle, as well as those of Josephus and Philo; from the public records of France and Great Britain; and from the whole structure of our own government, and the history of our jurisprudence. He maintained with great force, that it is to the laws of Moses, and not the politics of Greece and Rome, that we moderns are indebted for the great and precious principles of civil freedom. He referred to the fact as not a little remarkable, that when the presidents and professors of our colleges are most of them ministers of religion, a contrary impression is permitted to remain upon the minds of the young men, who are there receiving their education to be Ameri

can citizens. He administered a rebuke to those gentlemen, because they do not give the writings of Moses a more prominent place in their systems of instruction, and because they do not more distinctly inform their pupils that the true elements of republican liberty are to be sought in his institutions; but permit the Greek and Roman authors to monopolize their admiration and their gratitude. The very nations whose achievements in arts and arms these writers so eloquently commemorate, were not a little indebted to the genius of the Hebrew legislator for those principles and qualities in their institutions which awaken our youthful enthusiasm.

In his third lecture, Mr. WINES showed that to suppress and supplant idolatry was the grand design, and constituted, as it were, the very soul, of the Mosaic Institutes. He entered into an elaborate and erudite examination of the qualities and tendencies of polytheism, and of the nature, design, and limit of the theocracy. He showed that the theocratic feature of the government was not an arrangement of the commonwealth, fundamentally different from the monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, and mixed forms of government; but that, viewed as to its main design, it was nothing more than a name, or contrivance, employed the more effectually to exclude idolatry. God took the name of king, as a title that conferred honor on the Israelites, and the great object of it was to supplant idolatry, without an infringement of that essential and precious principle of civil liberty, that mere opinions are not to be cramped and restrained by the pains and penalties of the civil law. Having cleared the ground by these preliminary disquisitions, the lecturer entered upon the analysis of the constitution itself. This part of the discussion was exceedingly novel, philosophical, and luminous. Learned doctors in divinity acknowledged themselves instructed and charmed by his masterly dissection of the jus publicum of the Hebrews; the texture and frame-work of their government; the fundamental, organic law of their state. He proved, conclusively, that the government Moses instituted was a constitutional democracy, and that there were, properly speaking, neither nobles nor peasants under it, but a brotherhood of hardy and industrious yeomen, all politically equal, and having each an important stake in the maintenance of public tranquillity and order. The analogies between the Hebrew government and ours, in their substance, forms, and modes of administration, were shown to be, many of them, most close and surprising. The radical features of that ancient and venerable social compact were stated thus: Each of the twelve tribes formed a separate, and in some respects, independent state, with a local legislature and supreme court of judicature, having absolute power within the limit of its reserved rights. Nevertheless, so long as the Constitution of Moses was preserved unimpaired, there was both a real and a vigorous general government and national administration. The nation might, with strict propriety, have been denominated, 'The United States' of Israel. The government consisted of four departments; the chief magistrate, the senate, the oracle, and the congregation of Israel. This last was the popular branch, and consisted of deputies truly representing the nation, and faithfully embodying and carrying out the decrees of the popular will. The form of a legal enactment might have run thus: 'Be it enacted by the Congregation of Israel, the Senate advising, the Judge presiding, and the Oracle assenting.' There was a supreme national court at Jerusalem, to which difficult causes were adjourned from the local tribunals. And, finally, the organization of the tribe of Levi was such as to impart a vital action to the whole system, at the same time that it served as a sort of counterpoise to the democracy, and prevented its excesses. All these positions, and many others not here enumerated, were sustained with an array of convincing arguments, drawn from the sacred writings themselves.

The great Hebrew statesman foresaw that the time would come, when his countrymen, infected and dazzled by the example of the surrounding nations, would lose their relish for republican simplicity, and demand the splendors of a throne and a court. But it was neither his advice nor his wish that they should have a king. He used every means to prevent it. He reasoned; he dissuaded; he expostulated; he threatened; he ut ered many solemn and fearful warnings against the dangers and horrors of despotism. If he

could not wholly resist the headlong proclivity of his nation to the regal form of government, he at least postponed the issue which he dreaded; he fenced about the royal power with a thousand unwelcome restrictions; and, by his glowing and withering denunciations against every form and species of despotism, he showed how thoroughly his own spirit was impregnated with popular principles; how deep was his hatred of tyranny and usurpation; and how ardent and irrepressible his sympathy for the rights, the liberties, and the happiness of the people. Whoever, then, holds to the divine legation of Moses, and therefore necessarily believes that a constitutional and representative democracy is a form of government stamped with the seal of the divine approval, while the monarchy was but granted in anger to the mad clamors of the people, will hence derive a new and forcible argument to cherish and defend the precious charter of our own liberties, since its type and model came originally from the depths of the divine wisdom and goodness. We are glad to learn that these very able lectures of Professor WINES are to be re-modelled, extended to eight, and repeated the ensuing season. A syllabus of them lies before us, which we shall have pleasure in presenting, when the time for their delivery shall have arrived.

THE SPANISH STUDENT. A Play in three Acts. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. In one volume. pp. 174. Cambridge: JOHN OWEN. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

WITH what regularly-progressive steps HENRY W. LONGFELLOW has trod the path of fame! We can scarcely call to mind an American writer who has exhibited the industry of patient acquisition, the increasing refinement of taste, the expansion of fancy, and the enhanced delicacy of execution, which have distinguished the literary career of the author of the volume before us. Nor in depth of thought, and power of expression, have Mr. LONGFELLOW's writings fallen behind those of any of his contemporaries; while in that winning sympathy with humanity, which finds a response in every bosom, it would be difficult to name his superior. It is not however for this Magazine - which has been the source through which the best and most voluminous portions of Mr. LONGFELLOW's poetical writings have been given to the public-to praise that which our readers know is its own best commendation. Nor can we, from the scores of pencilled and dog's-eared pages of the beautiful volume under notice, select a tithe of the passages which we indicated as we read, rather with the hope than the expectation of being able to find space for them in our crowded pages. For the beautiful story, we shall, in justice to the publishers and the author, refer our readers to the volume which contains it and its accessories, unmutilated; yet in the mean time we cannot resist an extract or two, as a sample of the execution of the verse. It is enough to make lovers of us all,' to read the annexed dialogue between the enamoured PRECIOSA and VICTORIAN:

PREC.
VIC.

Dost thou remember when first we met?
It was at Cordova,

In the Cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting

Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain.

PREC. 'T was Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees

Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

The priests were singing, and the organ sounded,

And then anon the great Cathedral bell.

It was the elevation of the Host.

We both of us fell down upon our knees,

Under the orange boughs, and prayed together.

I never had been happy, till that moment.

VIC. Thou blessed angel!

PREC. And when thou wast gone

I felt an aching here. I did not speak

To any one that day.

VIC. Sweet Preciosa!

I loved thee even then, though I was silent!

PREC. I thought I ne'er should see thy face again.

Thy farewell had to me a sound of sorrow.

VIC. That was the first sound in the song of love!
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,

And play the prelude of our fate. We hear

The voice prophetic, and are not alone.

If any doubt that WORDSWORTH'S 'comfort in the strength of love' can be exaggerated, let him or her ' inwardly digest' the following picture of the power of this passion, drawn by VICTORIAN:

WHAT I most prize in woman

Is her affection, not her intellect.

Compare me with the great men of the earth-
What am I? Why, a pigmy among giants!
But if thou lovest mark me, I say lovest-
The greatest of thy sex excels thee not!
The world of the affections is thy world-
Not that of man's ambition. In that stillness
Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy,
Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,
Feeding its flame. The element of fire

Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature,
But burns as brightly in a gypsy camp
As in a palace hall.

How forcible are the following thoughtful lines:

HYP. HAST thou e'er reflected

How much lies hidden in that one word now?
Vic. Yes; all the awful mystery of Life!

I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito,

That could we, by some spell of magic, change
The world and its inhabitants to stone,

In the same attitudes they now are in,

What fearful glances downward might we cast

Into the hollow chasms of human life!

What groups should we behold about the death-bed,

Putting to shame the group of Niobe!

What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells!

What stony tears in those congealed eyes!

What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks!

What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows!

What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling!
What lovers with their marble lips together!

But we are admonished of our lack of space; and are left only room to say to every lover whether of some precious maid, or more precious 'wife and mother now,' or lover only of the beautiful and the true in poetry—to obtain the Spanish Student,' and lay its gentle teachings to the new-warmed heart.'

CLASSICAL STUDIES: ESSAYS ON ANCIENT LITERATURE AND ART: with the Biography and Correspondence of eminent Philologists. By DAVID SEARS, President of Newton Theological Institution; Professor B. B. EDWARDS, of Andover, and Professor C. C. FELTON, of Harvard University. Boston: GOULD, KENDALL, AND LINCOLN.

:

THIS work will be warmly welcomed by scholars, and all true lovers of classical learning. Professor EDWARDS furnishes an essay upon the study of Greek literature, of classical antiquity, and upon the school of philology in Holland; President SEARS presents the reader with an article upon the schools of German philology, a very voluminous correspondence between eminent philologists in Germany, together with a history of the Latin language and Professor FELTON contributes an admirable paper upon the Wealth of the Greeks in Works of Plastic Art; the superiority of the Greek Language in the use of its Dialects; the education of the Moral Sentient among the Ancient Greeks; and, as we have reason, from internal evidence, to believe, the excellent Introduction.' We are glad to learn from this last-mentioned treatise, that amidst the din of practical interests, the rivalries of commerce, and the great enterprises of the age, classical studies are gaining ground in public estimation. It is a much more common thing now for young