ing of their writings and their spirit that the idea of this true human existence first rose upon Christian nations. Nourished into greatness upon these writings, our own two great classical poets have represented, both in life and in poetry, and also in its two principal manifestations of a gradual growth and a hardly-won victory,-this penetration of nature by spirit-of the Sensuous by the Moral. In Goethe and Schiller, as poets and as men, that was accomplished which Schubart wanted, when, without even having discovered the way, he ended his fateful wanderings."

There is no more extraordinary statement than this, that Greece had solved the problem how to unite the spiritual and bodily life in one homogeneous harmony. The only truth in it is the mixture of beauty with which their material civilisation was penetrated. No Western nation ever infused less of spiritual and moral force into its outward life. Plato's dialogues are one continued wail that the physical life in Greece. has enslaved the mind. And they describe a state of society which proves that this assertion was not the passionate delusion of an impatient moralist. The difficulty of attaining a homogeneous human life, of which Dr. Strauss speaks so much, is simply the difficulty of making the life of the body assist and strengthen that of the spirit, and the life of the spirit develop that of the body. Where is there this fusing power in the "service of the Idea," which, if it be any thing at all, would seem to be only abstract? It is admitted that a fusing power is needed; that, in fact, the mental and physical powers are divergent. Where, then, should this fusing power be, except in the worship of Another in whom there is no such conflictwhose life is the Life of the universe, and also the spirit of Righteousness and Love?

ART. IX. THE SLAVE EMPIRE OF THE WEST.

America Free, or America Slave: an Address on the State of the Country, delivered by John Jay, Esq., at Bedford, Westchester County, New York, October 8th, 1856.

A History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction in the United States from the Declaration of Independence to the Present Day. By Horace Greeley. New York, 1856.

A History of the American Compromises. By Harriet Martineau. London: John Chapman, 1856.

American Slavery: a Reprint of an Article on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," of which a portion was inserted in the 206th Number of the Edinburgh Review, and of Mr. Sumner's Speech of the 19th and 20th May 1856. London: Longman and Co., 1856.

Kansas, the Seat of War in America. By Richard Bowlby. London: Effingham Wilson, 1856.

Dred: a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 1856.

Ir to be moved by the same events and eager about the same issues be a natural evidence of sympathy and friendship, never was an instinctive congeniality more intensely marked than between England and America during the past autumn. The elections in the United States have been watched with an interest rarely felt in the domestic concerns of a distant country: and the steamer that brought Mr. Buchanan's numbers was held to be charged with a more momentous message than the telegraph which declared the vote for the "Elected of December." Nor had our own British affairs any thing to do with this excitement. It was a genuine self-identification with a struggle every-way great,-great in its principle, great in its scale, great in its consequences: and every thing was forgot except indig nation at the lawless wrongs which preceded and embittered it, and admiration of the men by whom they had been worthily denounced. No doubt our English sympathies have been all on one side, and that the defeated one: but for no other reason than prevails with patriots of Massachusetts or New York; because resistance to the Southern policy appears essential to the true glory of the Republic and the best hopes of the world. If we are disappointed and disquieted at the issue of the contest, it is because we could desire better guarantees for the peace, the freedom, the permanently high example, of an empire nearest in kindred and youngest in promise.

The suspense, with all its party exaggerations, is now at an end. The Legislature of the United States is settled for two years, the Executive for four. The men are already named, who are to impress a direction on one of the critical periods of human history: and during the lull which intervenes between their appointment and their action, while their purposes are taking silent shape in their minds, the hour is favourable for an estimate of their position and probable policy.

Not for the first time,-perhaps for the last,-the terrible problem of Slavery, long the secret haunt, has become the open battle-field of American politics. In the recent strife of parties, this topic furnished the sole issue to be tried. In place of the delicate silence, usually enforced by the code of democratic politeness, towards the "peculiar institution," the journals, the halls, the "stumps," have exhausted the resources of political eloquence in its attack and defence. This public discussion even in Congress, of a subject long sealed-up under official and popular prohibition, is regarded by many simple-minded persons as a cheering sign that "the question is making way." They remember the time when a profound unconsciousness of this evil seemed to possess the country,-when you might read through the whole literature of the Union (advertisements excepted) without suspecting the existence of a slave, or when the right of petition and the liberty of debate were refused at Washington to the hopes and conscience of the North. Comparing this unhealthy suppression with the free speech of the past summer, they celebrate the dawn and anticipate the victory, of the daylight now let in. Alas! they forget that the silent and suspended interval of every strife is simply the hour of watchful equipoise, while each combatant can barely hold his own: and that when the shout is first raised, it only means that one of the foes feels himself strong enough to rush upon the other, and tells not whether the advance be from the evil or the good. In the present instance, what is it that has broken the ominous silence? Is it that the reforming spirit has recovered its feet and renewed the fight? Is it not rather that the oppressor's fear is gone, and he exchanges his dumb feint for loud audacity? For awhile the South. was content with stopping the mouth of the New-England States: but now she prefers to speak out for herself, and cane the bare head of Senatorial reply. The debate in Congress has arisen, not in concession to Northern rights, but in the service. of Southern treachery and aggression,-to legalise a breach of public faith and force the stipulated limits of slavery. It only proves, we fear, that shame has been cast aside; and that the time is past when mere words on the floor of the House are terrible.

The Englishman, having once upon a time paid twenty millions to redeem his negroes, and being moreover a decent Christian, never doubts that slavery is a doomed institution, and habitually speaks as if it were nearly worn out. He resents it as a reflection both on the efficacy of his own good example and on the Providence of the world, if you hint that this iniquity may yet have its lease renewed. All his strongest feelings and most fixed ideas render him inaccessible to such an apprehension: his instincts of justice, his political economy, his respect for Brother Jonathan who thrashed him and set up for himself, his admiration of Washington and the great Republic, his trust in the veracity of their declaration "All men are born free and equal,"-combine to assure him, that, somehow or other, emancipation cannot be far off. The faith in Right which this opinion involves, the slowness to believe in any triumph of Wrong, we honour in the highest degree; and we accept with intense conviction their predictions as to the ultimate issues of human things. But "the end is not yet;" nor are "the times and the seasons" to be ascertained by the justest light of faith and sentiment. The proximate Future is determined by the recent Past: and if historical prevision is attainable at all, it can only be by carefully laying down the lines of tendency that run through the present century and tracing whither they converge. There is an abusive reliance on Eternal Rectitude which makes good men blind to the real forces of human wickedness and incredulous of the possible vitality of wrong. They talk about "trust in a principle." But the best "principle" in the world is not alive; and will effect just nothing at all, if let alone, or merely blazoned forth in speech and print. Not till it gets hold of living men and works itself out at their finger-ends, not till it passes from abstract to concrete, from moral to material, is the smallest hope to be entertained of it. We know not which is most to be deplored, in this matter of American Slavery; the conservative quietude which is content to invoke the influence of "truth and time;"-or the abolitionist repudiation of "political action." Busy falsehood will do more, we fear, in the briefest "time," than idle "truth" in an eternity. And in dealing with an evil subsisting by artifice of law, strengthened by constitutional compact, and penetrating the entire policy of the State, to renounce "political action" seems very like objecting to "medical action" in a case of poisoning, or "typographical action" in confutation of a book. The plea that every resort to the ballot-box implies allegiance to a constitution which recognises slavery, is so puerile, that we presume there is some other than this ostensible ground,-some local difficulty-some unexpressed antipathy,-at the base of this extra

ordinary resolve. We rejoice to observe that the present crisis has emancipated some of the noblest of a noble band from a scruple so disabling. For the personal devotedness and heroism of many Abolitionists, and for the genius and accomplishments of some, we avow the highest admiration and in the stern work of awakening the public conscience and baffling every hope of a hush-up, they have done good service. But the problem which they start they do not help to solve. To the foreigner their public organs are repulsive from their violence. To the statesman their programme of "immediate emancipation" is absurd to begin with, and becomes mere trifling at the end of twenty years. To the moralist, their refusal to mediate between the inherited evil and the desired escape,-their short-cut through all sympathy with the slaveholders' difficulty,-must appear a virtual confession of incapacity to deal with the elements of a vast and complicated question. We are far from admitting the assertion that they have retarded the solution of the great problem: but their function as a party is to supply rather incentives to the conflict than wisdom to achieve the victory.

To judge of the prospects of American Slavery, it is necessary to watch the changes it has undergone, in area, in population, in strength of economical interest, in hold on political party and social opinion, during the last seventy years.

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During the war of Independence, there was no State whose soil was without its bondsmen. But that struggle awakened sentiments which put slavery to the blush and as early as 1783, the phrase in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, "All men are born free and equal," was declared, in the Supreme Court at Boston, to bar slave-holding in that State. The judges of New Hampshire attributed to the same words the effect of securing freedom to every child subsequently born. The example spread immediately to Connecticut and Rhode Island. Before 1790, the further introduction of slaves had been prohibited in five other States, including Virginia and Maryland, and provision had been made in Pennsylvania and New York and New Jersey for the exemption from bondage of all future-born persons. Every where, except in South Carolina and Georgia, the tendency declared itself against Slavery: but nowhere was the "institution" entirely absent. In this early and mixed state of things, the social colouring was much more homogeneous than we are apt to imagine: and a later season was required to bring out the distinctive shades. Throwing back, however, into the servile territory the States which, like Virginia, did not follow up their good beginnings, and claiming as free soil only those that consummated their emancipative acts, we find that a survey of the Union in its first years would yield the following