caution and distrust. A habit of trying whatsoever | for which they were instituted. That is to be concerns the state by fixed and immutable stand-blinded and ensnared by his own creations. And ards. Yet all know that the opposite of this wise equally should he be above the weakness, alike spirit of caution and distrust may be engendered offensive to self-respect and fatal to good governamong us, whatever may be thought of our ex-ment, of permitting incompetency to intrude its emption from it now or heretofore. And that in feebleness into stations where mediocrity is never place of the manly and dignified bearing, before safe, nor the highest wisdom always secure from which demagogues would be abashed, there may error. spring up an indolent and criminal credulity which A free State is always in danger, from party any charlatan may abuse. A state of the public violence, of having its welfare mistaken or negmind, in such fatal contrast with its original dignity lected, if it escape with its institutions and its and force, as that the little which will remain of honor. Political parties in themselves are not an its former self, may be the melancholy retention evil; but then they are innocent only when the of a vocabulary after its meaning has been aban-means they employ, and the ends at which they doned or perverted. Who that honors the Ameri-aim, are fair, just, consistent with those primary can character, honorable it truly is for its giant obligations which are beyond the power of combienergies and massive weight,-Who that honors nations to release or annul. The danger from parour glorious institutions, and would transmit them ties is their proneness to abuse, and the facility in all their excellence to future times,-Who that honors our heroic age, and venerates the memory of its illustrious founders, does not yearn to warn his countrymen against parasites and demagogues. An American citizen should respect himself too much to mistake the adulation which would flatter his vices for regard; and be too proud to be be-independent people. It is the reverse of this pictrayed by his vanity.

with which they degenerate into faction. They may and do originate in honest differences of opinion concerning questions which do and must arise; and it is alike natural and commendable in either to endeavor to impress its own on the common belief. This is all fair and characteristic of a manly and

ture, which it is humiliating to contemplate. ParLiterary men, as before intimated, are especially ties intent upon dominion regardless of means, and important in a free republic. They are important that deem any sacrifice better than defeat. The for the reasons that education is important;-not safety of a people is in their moderation—the due that they supply its place, but for the controlling in-appreciation of what is respectable, true, venerable fluence they exert in determining its character and in their reverence for what is sacred, and their extent. A low state of education and a vicious abhorrence of whatever is ignoble and discreditable. public taste, or the reverse, will prevail, according But party violence is engaged in extinguishing as the literary class is more or less distinguished by every sentiment and motive favorable to popular sound learning and elevation of character-as it consists of idle theorists and pedants, or of original and profound thinkers-as it is frivolous and effeminate, or strenuous and manly,-as it is satisfied to be conspicuous, regardless of purity and force, or as it is animated by a proud conception of its dignity, prizing alone the admiration won by its merits.

It is a lamentable error to suppose that inferior men are equal to the cares of a free State. The consequences of such a delusion are more mischievous than the evils of mal-administration-great as such evils are or may be. The tone of the public mind is let down, and wisdom stripped of its honor. by the idea that it is not indispensable in the concerns of government. Mediocrity will content the ambitious, when nothing beyond is deemed necessary for office.

virtue. It is essentially false false to the duties of patriotism-to all which concerns the true welfare and glory of the State-false to the elevation of the common mind-false even to confederates and dupes. Yet hateful as party violence is, it is the infection which ever threatens a free State.

But then it may be asked, what agency can literary men exert in moderating party violence; and how can they preserve in the public mind those sentiments and principles of which all acknowledge the dignity and worth. It may be objected that literary men are not inaccessible to party bitterness and strife; and that they, not less than humble names, may be destitute of genuine, unaffected concern for the public good.

True, learning is not always accompanied by generous sentiments and good principles. Gifted men Then the cheapening of office, by lowering are not unfrequently bad men, who abuse their influits standards, multiplies the number of aspirants. ence to the detriment of others as well as to their to the disparagement of private stations. The own disgrace. But such cases are rare, and in the old Chancellor who directed his son to note the higher walks of literature more unfrequent than little wisdom with which the world was govern- lower down, where pedants escape detection, and ed, uttered it not in commendation, but in scorn.prove only that learning may be foiled of its apA free citizen ought to be superior to the weakness propriate fruit, in nourishing and confirming the of permitting the places of government to usurp in inner light. Sound learning is affluent of generous his regard, the consideration due only to the ends sentiment as it is of vigorons thought; and those

who have scaled its lofty summits are generally | companionship. Without it, however blest in other not less estimable for their virtues than distin-respects, society is occupied with matters which guished by their attainments. They are not fault-are narrow, ephemeral, paltry, to the neglect of less we know; but infirm and liable to err as they those which are permanent and ennobling. In a are, how do their opposites compare with them, word, without such a class, there can be no pure, with reference to the value of their services and sound, national literature. But with it, we shall influence? If learned men be unsafe, what are have a literature so far national, as it ought to be pretenders and sciolists? affected by what is peculiar and a credit to our counThen consider the influence of literary men on try, teeming with the affluence of foreign and inthe literature of a country. Without literature, it digenous treasure-National, we may hope, in this, will be conceded, a State is destitute of an essen- that it will awake the citizen to a vivid sense of tial element of true greatness. It might be said, the inseparable connection of his country's destiny of every element, for the Society has never ex-with the observance of moral and religious duty; isted which was refined, moral, or respected, that and reflect. as with the distinctness of a mirror, was destitute of a literature, at once elevated and the unchangeable truth, that, as civil liberty has its diffused. Nay, the progress of a nation in devel-origin in the mind, so by the mind must it be deoping its natural advantages, and rendering them fended and preserved. available, may be inferred from the state of its literature. A State without it, whatever be its political organization, is but a

"Nation of slaves with tyranny debased,

Their Maker's image more than half effaced."

MR. RIVES' ADDRESS.

The treasures of knowledge, the powers of art, the triumphs of science, are as well the foundation While I concur in the general opinion of the as the indicia of social progress. They constitute, design and intention of Mr. Rives' speech before as has been well remarked, a permanent addition the Alumni of the University of Virginia, and also to the inheritance of mankind. of its general merits, yet there are some serious Be it, that men of varied and profound acquire-errors in it, to which I think attention ought to be ments are not above the infirmities of our nature, called-errors which must seriously impair the and that at times they fall into lamentable errors, value of the discourse with all persons who think for yet, when not lost to every sense of honest fame, themselves, and are not carried away by authority there springs even from their ruins a redeeming and elegant declamation. virtue. Society may be disappointed of its hopes, In the first place, in the unlimited laudation of by the abuse or neglect of noble powers;-yet it Mr. Jefferson, Mr. R. has rather perverted the use is something to have beheld them, though it were of history than drawn from it the stern lesson of in confusion only-Something to awaken a kin-truth, for the instruction of his hearers and readdred spirit, happy in its superiority to the infirmiers. The time-honored maxim "Fiat justitia" is ties of an unfortunate brother. Milton and Burke well known. I only want to do justice—and if poswere of like passions with ourselves, which at times burnt fiercely; but who would mar his grateful sense of their immortal labors by hunting out their foibles from the oblivion to which their virtues have consigned them. Let me not be misunderstood. I am making no apology for the follies or the vices of the wise; but answering only the suggestion of sloth and feebleness, in a vain attempt to blunt the consciousness of painful imbecility. The demand upon which we insist is for a high order of intellectual attainment ever ambitious of higher advances; a demand audible in the earnest vigils of an unsophisticated public yearning for more and more intelligence; and it would not be more unreasonable to omit to plant and sow, through fear of an untimely frost, than to neglect the moral requisition, because eminent endowments are sometimes perverted and abused.

Aye, the demand is for a literary class, stinted neither in numbers, nor in rank-breathing the pure spirit of its order, and kindling into ardor from large

sible to do, even though but a little, to prevent the weight of Mr. R's name and eloquence from doing injustice. I do not speak at all in reference to Mr. Jefferson's politics, but entirely to his moral and intellectual character; and to his well known principles and opinions on the subject of religion: and the influence these principles had upon his happiness, as also upon his reputation.

I do not deny Mr. Jefferson very great abilities-nor generous amiability of disposition—nor patriotism. But still I think his own writings will bear me out in the assertion, that by the principles and opinions which he adopted on one most important subject he made utter shipwreck of his happipiness, and moreover prepared the virus which will utterly destroy his reputation and influence. And instead of his latter days being filled with "august recollections," there is abundant evidence that they were very much clouded by gloomy apprehensions, and by mortifications which caused him great and almost continual pain-a pain which he says him

self he sometimes tried to assuage by pouring it into the ears of his friends. And his history affords a striking and impressive example to the moralist, of the perfect and absolute certainty with which error punishes its disciples and votaries. If the christian religion ever had an enemy that it might fear, it was Mr. Jefferson. More popular than Hume and more temperate and skilful than Voltaire, in this country at least he has done more to injure religion than any person who ever lived

in it.

as drawn by Dryden, and acknowledged by all to
be as just as it is severe :-

"Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by starts and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking;
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest and they had his estate.

Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left."

Now remember the character of Strafford. We

Now, while casting such unmeasured odium on the French philosophers, why does Mr. R. make such an honorable and distinguished exception of Mr. Jefferson? If any one thing may be asserted may differ from him in opinions of government and more positively than another about Mr. J., it is his policy. We may in very many things condemn unmixed love for, and his admiration of France his course. We may admit that in his governand especially of French philosophy. No follower ment he was often arbitrary, and that on one well of Voltaire or of the Encyclopedists ever embraced known occasion, while Deputy of Ireland, he was more fully than he did their opinions of the untruth cruel and even sanguinary. But still for all these of the christian religion-the perfectibility of hu- it is impossible not to respect his character and man nature, and the equality and infinite advance- admire his courage and eloquence. So much inment of human society. Like them he attributed deed did his enemies fear him, that until they got almost all the evils of society to religion, its min-him out of the way, they hardly hoped for success isters and abuses, which he always classes together. in their revolutionary schemes. Nor did Charles The christian religion he habitually calls "our su- I. feel his throne sensibly shake under him perstition," and the christian ministry "its hiero- until he had weakly and wickedly betrayed this phants." In his writings he uniformly represents his best and ablest friend. Nor is there one sinthe preachers of the christian religion as the most gle thing connected with the Rebellion, which has artful, designing, unprincipled and dangerous class done so much to injure the reputation of the Parof men in the community. All I contend for is, liamentary leaders as the manner in which they that these erroneous opinions wrought in him all destroyed Strafford. And it is hard to find—in any the evil and misery they produced in the French language-a finer specimen of manly and dignified philosophers. Many of the French philosophers, eloquence than his defence of himself—a defence especially D'Alembert, were amiable men, and conducted too under every possible disadvantage. and in point of character, both moral and intellec- And after having defended himself in a way and tual, could bear a very favorable comparison with with a spirit and wisdom that astonished his powMr. Jefferson; and the influence they exerted on ful enemies-and that excites admiration in every the world is the best evidence of their learning and abilities. Why then hold them up as warnings to posterity, and in the same breath give their warmest friend and co-laborer such a different character? I do not see the justice of this, and when Mr. R. undertook the dignified office of consulting the records of History and reporting its dicta to his confiding audience, he should not have suffered personal feeling, or national pride to blind his perceptions, and make him suppress some of its teachings.

reader-he then met his death not like a Philosopher,
(for Philosophers have never been famous for courage
on such occasions,) but like a Christian-and when
he died, friend and foe acknowledged that there was
severed the best head that sat upon any pair of
English shoulders. And if it be unjust to class
Strafford with Buckingham, it is still more so to
nickname him a Sejanus.

There are some other instances in which Mr. R. has been unjust in his decision, and unlucky in his examples. But I skip over those to come toBut again; not only has Mr. R. been thus incon- ward the conclusion of his Discourse-where with siderately partial to Mr. Jefferson, but he has also some indignation toward those who differ from been unjust to Strafford. By what law or canon him, and a charge against them of being libellous of character can Strafford be classed with Buck- and blasphemous, and with a high tone of moral ingham Buckingham, famous for nothing but his and virtuous feeling himself, he asserts as comwit and profligacy,—and his wit is altogether of a plete a fallacy as can well be found in any resfrivolous and licentious character; and Strafford, pectable author. In the beginning of one of his one of the wisest, sternest, most courageous men latter paragraphs, he says, But can it be that in that England-prolific in all that is great-has ever the moral government of the world by infinite produced. Here is the character of Buckingham goodness and justice, blood and slaughter, impiety

66

some of his views rather to extremes; but his work still merits the following commendation, from the "North British Review."

This is a very extraordinary and a very delightful book, full of truth and goodness, of power and beauty. If genius may be considered, (and it is as serviceable a definition as is current,) that power by which one man produces for the use or the pleasure of his fellow-men, something at once new and true, then have we here its unmistakable for it, and read these volumes thoroughly, giving themselves up to the guidance of this most original thinker, and most attractive writer, and they will find not only that they are richer in true knowledge, and quickened in pure and heav

and inestimable handiwork. Let our readers take our word

ner air."

We received the work, we think, through Nash & Wood house.

The Power of the Soul over the Body, considered in Relation

to Health and Morals. By George Moore, M. D., author of Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind." Harper & Brothers.

and crime are ever the NECESSARY means of improvement and reform." Mr. R. well knows the different definitions given to the word "necessity," as it is used in a popular, or philosophic sense. Now, in which sense does he here use it? If he means to use it in its strict and philosophic sense, and ask if infinite goodness and justice have no other resources than blood and slaughter by which to accomplish their object-he merely announces a truism. But why limit the attributes of Deity to goodness and justice? or again, why substitute the word improvement for revolution-and thus by one dash of the pen change the question he was dis-enly affections, but they will open their eyes upon a new cussing? But to leave these and come directly to world-walk under an ampler heaven, and breathe a divihis proposition. Is not violence necessary to every reform? And can there be any reformation, or, which is the same thing, any radical improvement which affects a whole nation without revolution? And do not blood and slaughter, impiety and crime invariably accompany every revolution? Can any "We are very glad to see a good American reprint of this one point to any revolution or reformation, in anadmirable work. It is just the book to set men right in recient or modern times, recorded in sacred or pro-gard to many inental phenomena on which their minds have fane history, which has been unattended by blood been running wild, under the teachings of Phrenology, and slaughter? And that which has uniformly and Mesmerism, and other like vagaries. The author is a man invariably happened on all such occasions every where, and in every nation for six thousand years, I am disposed to think is very nearly if not quite necessary. An effect so certain cannot happen without an adequate cause. Whether the word "necessity" is the exact word descriptive of that cause I do not undertake to say. But this I say, that Mr. R. cannot proscribe it as vehemently and in as unqualified terms as he has done, without running into some of the errors of the French Philosophers themselves-nor without casting reflection-certainly inconsistent with his present office of moral teacher—on the wisdom and power, if not also on the goodness and justice of the Deity, in permitting these evils and miseries always and every where to afflict nations on such occasions. J. T. C. Halifax, Va.

manner.

Notices of New Works.

We find upon our table a number of new works, at once valuable and interesting, and published in the most elegant But being disabled, by indisposition, from writing much, and being unwilling to delay the appearance of the Messenger any longer, we must avail ourselves of the critiques of others, so far as we can conscientiously do so, from an examination of the works which we have received. MODERN PAINTERS. By a graduate of Oxford. Wiley & Putnam. New York. 1847.

This very handsome volume is devoted to an original and philosophical examination of the principles of Art, especially as applied to Landscape painting, of which the author deems Turner the great modern master. The author pushes

of profound science, but an humble believer in revelation, and as he admits that some things are to be received by faith,

he attempts no explanation of what our limited faculties do not allow us to comprehend. With this limitation, he makes clear to every comprehension most of the psychological phenomena usually regarded as mysterious, in the plainest and most satisfactory way. The apparent abstruse title of the book may lead some, perhaps, to think it a mere metaphysical treatise, not to be understood by common readers, but this is not the fact-it contains very little that cannot be understood by any reader, and it is as amusing as it is instructive, abounding in eurious facts, illustrative of the author's views and doctrines. This work is intimately connected with another by the same author on the "Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind," a reprint of which was recently issued from the same press. Taken together, they form the most perfect treatise on these subjects in our language, and should be read by every one who cares to know anything of the imperishable part of his own nature. The volume now before us forms the XXVth. of Harper's well selected and beautifully printed New Miscellany of Popular Sterling Literature."-Lit. World.

Call on Drinker & Morris.

The Good Genius that turned everything into Gold; or, the
Queen Bee of the Magic Dress: A Christmas Fairy Tale.
By the Brothers Mayhew. New York: Harper & Bro-
thers. 1847.

"In a recent number we alluded to a new and beautiful series of juvenile books commenced by Harper & Brothers, under the title of "The Fireside Library." They have all the appearance of the first class of London works in the same department-being printed with large, clear type, and bound in illuminated covers, and with gilt edges. Another number has appeared since our notice. It is an imaginative story, fitted to win and impress the imagination of childhood, and at the same time afford a useful moral lesson. As guides to taste as well as conduct, these elegant little volumes are worthy of the attention of parents and teachers. They are such a decided improvement upon similar books, that we cannot do otherwise than praise their ap pearance, and commend them to general favor."-Lat. Wor. [For other Notices see 3rd page of Cover.]