should know what a fief male and female under this limitation would be called. To her journalists we apprehend Germany is still a Hyrcinian forest tenanted (besides the wild boar, which are capital hunting,) by serfs with a harsh guttural dialect, and a few Lords in Chateaux; (how many the German sovereigns are is only known at the foreign office, where credentials for the ambassadors are made out) the amusement of English journals is to shake the fetters of these serfs in the faces of their masters, and demand of them the promised constitutions, though we are not aware that the poor kings have ever yet been allowed a day in court.

To what is it to be attributed that of all European affairs only English politics are well understood in America? Who is to blame that the history of France from the restoration up to the accession of the Polignac ministry, a period as full of instruction for all constitutional governments as the entire period from 1688 until 1832, in the English annals, is scarcely better known in America than the contemporary events in Turkey? We suspect our insulars must bare the blame of keeping us in uncertainty and ignorance. The general mind of America faithful to the hand that feeds it, takes delight in studying English concerns: we will specify a case, where curtailing itself to the acquisition of small things, it would suffice for learning the whole system of Europe. How many Americans know Debrett well, who could by no means count how many independent States there are in Europe? Suppose for Debrett were substituted the genealogical almanac of Gotha ; they would thus exchange petty information, no ways concerning them, for knowledge which is history. And thus it must obviously continue; for, if none but English knowledge is put in our reach, the most ingenious student will only become more English than his duller fellows. Let no one sneer at us, as trying to subtract the American mind from its only natural and mother-jurisdiction. We aver, before heaven, that we believe the instinct of liberty in America will one day be endangered by the uninterrupted influence of contemporary English literature and manners, Undermine a few principles, and efface this instinct the most vital of all, and our Republic could not sustain itself forever by its own weight. The sentiment of Aristocracy, with which her literature is at present more pregnant than it ever was before-and scarcely more in Scott than in Moore-once fairly introduced, in the train of fastidiousness and exclusiveness, would do the work of our destruction more effectually than sermons preached by a Sacheverel in every village in America for a century. But we should

wrong ourselves if we said there was proximate danger of this: enough, that it is a possibility. We dare not go free of all care, knowing the deposit we bear.

The spirit which has animated us, in what we have written, is not of hostility to England, for we profess to fulfil scrupulously the maxim of public jurists, "nations at war are the only enemies, all others, friends." We have only spoken to our countrymen for the interests of democracy. We could by no means permit ourselves to offer wanton reproach to England. What we desired to inculcate was that the dignity of human nature might be alike elevated by searching beyond the English limit, that justice to ourselves demands that we should sometimes follow another guide besides the English Sibyl, who neither knows any thing, nor is the fittest to conduct a democracy. Beyond this, we add: the closest bond of union which need bind us to England, is, perhaps, the treaty of commerce between us. Treaties of peace prescribe mutual comity, but do not enjoin companionship. In spite of the humane philosophy of Mr. Irving we cannot think England the most natural bosom companion of America, or that we owe her more, in duty and affection, than is nominated in our bond. Nor, for the reason that we are the two freest people on earth, descended of a common stock, do we feel the touch of nature draw us to her embrace: for, perhaps, our respective liberties are not much akin to each other, and we are candidly of opinion that the two nations of European origin which are the most unlike, are Great-Britain and the United States. Produce your voucher! Captain Basil Hall. Then again, except the occasional blandishments of the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine, we are half afraid the English are not more desirous of being the object of our romantic affection, than we, for our simple selves, are of seeing America proffer it. In candour, Captain Hall's book is one of sterling honesty-the genuine avowal of British sentiment with regard to America. It is what every thorough Englishman (and the sailors are the most thorough) must think of us, if they reason and feel logically. But it has done good for America among the aristocrats; for which of them will not blush to see how paltry the sum total of British detraction from our character is, and own with a smile that he never knew the claim of aristocracy to be so brainless a mask, as it is shewn to be by its favourite apologist. Let the English continue to think that Americans are nothing but the men of Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow transplanted into a new world: it is our fault if we either are, or long reVOL. VIII. NO. 16

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main second-rate English. The deposit of democratic liberty is little safe in our hands, if we be.

We have thus far not paid any attention to the excellent book, at the head of this paper. Sir James knows that he has a sure place in the heart of America: but it is something more than this book which we expect from him. We are longing for a suitable history of England from the revolution of 1688 up to this day, and we respectfully complain that he is slow to fulfil the world's hope. He will be eagerly read in America, when he comes forth with that work. So far from neglecting the reading of English history, we even doubt if it is not a great deal too much studied in the United States.

It is, no doubt, of the first consequence to a practical lawyer, that he should study well the civil history of England— but as for those speculators who with us usurp the high office of directing our judgments on political subjects, verily one is sometimes provoked to wish that they had never heard of that history at all. In the trackless desert, it is necessary sometimes to turn our eyes from the sands around us to the stars above us, but we are lost if we keep them there too long; in the untrodden wilderness it may be well to look to the way behind us, but it is better to ponder well the path before. Politics, is indeed, something better than a set of cunning rules often suspended by a miscounting selfishness, and ever flexible to every emerging circumstance: it is an art founded upon general, and, we believe, certain principles; but it is an art purely practical in its very nature, and it being once perceived that it should be the object of a statesman to provide real securities for the liberty and property of those whom he presumes to govern, it ought never to be forgotten that in choosing efficient means to effect this object, "he must ever have an eye to the place where, and to the men amongst whom he is."

"In the monarchies of Europe different orders and ranks of society are established, large masses of property are accumu'lated in the hands of single individuals, and standing armies ' are necessary;" but the condition of these United States is in all these respects wholly different. And yet, let the question be how it is possible in a representative democracy to prevent the majority from abusing the power of laying taxes? Let the question be, whether a man who has two cows has not as good a right to vote as he that owns one horse? Let the question be, whether it is not reasonable that those who act for the people should do as the people tell them? Let the question be what it may, what is the first thing which most American politicians

are sure to do? They spread their books-they are quite sure that whatever question may arise here, a question in consimili casu has already arisen in England; they hunt for an English authority, a case in point, and end with this. They take it all along for granted, that whatever it was prudent and just to do in old England two centuries, or, if you will, two years ago, it is of course prudent and just to do in Virginia or Carolina now. Let no one suppose from all this, that we look upon history as nothing more than, what it certainly is to the common race of readers, the aliment of unthinking curiosity or the amusement of restless indolence. To those who consult it with minds fitted and prepared to learn, it were a silly paradox to deny that it is of all studies that most likely to furnish us with a solid knowledge of those things which concern our conduct. What we wish to say is that it is idle to light the lamp of experience, if we hang that lamp where it can be no guide to our feet; that however well it may be to question the oracle of wisdom, the responses of that oracle can after all be worth nothing to him who cannot interpret, or will not apply them. "History," says Mr. Burke, "is a great improver of 'the understanding by showing both men and affairs in a great variety of views. From this source much political wisdom may be learned; that is, may be learned as habit not as precept; and as an exercise to strengthen the mind, as furnishing materials to enlarge and enrich it, not as a repertory of cases and precedents for a lawyer; if it were, a thousand times 'better would it be that a statesman had never learned to read— vellem nescirent literas. This method turns their understandings 'from the objects before them, and from the present exigencies of the world to comparisons with former times, of which after • all we can know very little and very imperfectly; and our guides the historians who are to give us their true interpreta'tion are often prejudiced, often ignorant, often fonder of sys6 tem than of truth. Whereas if a man with reasonable good 'parts and natural sagacity, and not in the leading-strings of any master, will look steadily on the business before him without 'being diverted by retrospect and comparison, he may be capable of forming a reasonable good judgment of what is to be 'done."

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ART. VIII.-1. Catechism of Political Economy, or familiar Conversations on the manner in which wealth is produced, distributed and consumed in Society. By JEAN BAPTISTE SAY, Professor, &c. &c. Translated from the French by John Richter. Philadelphia. 1817.

2. A Treatise on Political Economy, or the production, distribution and consumption of Wealth. By JEAN BAPTISTE SAY. Translated (in England) from the 4th edition of the French, by C. R. Prinsep, M. A. With Notes by the Translator. From the American edition, containing a translation of the Introduction, and additional Notes, by CLEMENT C. BIDDLE. Philadelphia. 1830.

To those who are in the habit of disparaging the science of Political Economy, we would propose one opportune test of its utility. Had it been understood heretofore, the Tariff would never have existed-were it understood now, the Tariff would not for a day longer glare above the horizon to perplex the Councils of the Nation with portents of disastrous change. Had it been duly taught and studied, that unhappy state of things this day afflicting our country, painful to the patriot and grateful to the minions of despotism, would not have been developed. The prophecies of a dissolution of the Confederacy, which have echoed on our shores from the other side of the Atlantic, would not, at least, have found sponsors among ourselves. The last achievement in the cause of liberty and justice would not be wanting to our institutions. Freedom of industry and equality of taxation would even now also be pillars of beauty and effulgence in our capitol. The angry discussions and sectional animosities consequent upon unfurling the transcendental and penultimate rights of the States, would not have disfigured our national anuals. In short, had correct and full knowledge been among the people upon this subject, that Pandora's box, the "Protective System," would never have been opened, and if hope still linger beneath its lid, to this science it is that she must look for aliment and life. Political freedom as a nation, civil freedom as citizens, the freedom of religious opinion and of the press we have realized to the full. Yet there remains to be achieved the freedom of industry. Competition is the best encouragement, monopoly its most deadly foe, and that government which grants the one or thwarts the other is guilty of tyranny."