Ambition accompanies active talent, as uniformly as heat does combustion, and directs its efforts to the attainment of the most desirable honour within its reach. In America, this honour is public office or professional distinction, and, therefore, all the talent of the country is drawn into the current, which sweeps in one of these directions. To establish the truth of the opinion we have advanced, and prove, that the low literary reputation of America, and the small show she makes in our libraries, are owing to bad education, want of learning, and the peculiar use to which talent is there applied, and not to any deficiency of it, we must trace its display in the course, which we say it takes.

The bar is the profession, which attracts the greatest number and the highest talents, and, notwithstanding the wretched state of preparation, in which most young men are when called to it, the country may well boast of the lawyers it has produced. In this profession, the deficiencies of education must be made up by after diligence; no man can attain to a high rank in it without legal learning; in spite of all the prejudices of the country, and the general disposition to reduce the system of jurisprudence to a few maxims of common sense, the common law of England remains, for the most part, the law of the land; and a knowledge of that, every one knows, cannot be acquired without laborious study, by the mere force of genius, however great. In all the states where this system still continues in force, we find a learned bar; and, although the lawyers entitled to this distinction are few, these few are eminently so; and, to prove it, we refer to the common law reports of the cases adjudged in the courts of final jurisdiction in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In some of the states, the issue of a suit depends chiefly upon the jury, and then the pleas of the counsel are of course rather appeals to popular feeling, than legal arguments; these are admirable schools, in which, to acquire a readiness of extemporaneous speaking, and great powers of that kind are often displayed in them; but as courts of justice, they deserve not to be named. The learning of the American bar has been displayed principally in their courts; and the only written evidence of it is contained in the

reports. Blackstone's Commentaries, and many other of the English elementary treatises, have been reprinted in the country, with notes, pointing out the alterations or modifications of the English law by their statutes. The civil law is not used at all, and not studied but by a very small number of curious scholars; and, in general, the English books are the only authorities cited, except in the admiralty courts, where the early Italian, Spanish, French, and Dutch writers upon maritime law are often referred to. It is difficult to draw a just parallel between the American and English bars, for two reasons; first, because in the former, the various departments of legal business are united in the same individual; and, secondly, because their period of preparatory study is much shorter, and their means and system of education greatly inferior; if proper allowance be made for these disadvantages, the first class of lawyers in America may be considered equal to the same class in England, in point of legal learning, and superior in extemporaneous speaking. We need not repeat what we stated so explicitly in the first division of our subject, that the well educated lawyers form but a small part of the whole number; it is of this small part that we have been speaking, and upon them the whole character and credit of the bar must

rest.

The intimate connexion, which exists in America between the bar and the senate, leads us, in the next place, to consider the character of the latter. No country ever had occasion for a greater proportion of statesmen, and in none was political education ever less attended to. Three thousand five hundred legislators are constantly required for the general and state governments; and, in the whole country, there is not a course of lectures, either upon their own constitutions, the law of nations, political economy, statistics, or history, and very little public instruction of any kind in these important departments of science and learning. The bar is the school in which the greatest, and almost the only requisite for a statesman is acquired, fluency in speaking. Want of the necessary knowledge is not the greatest evil arising from the want of proper political education; a far greater one is, that men who have been pursuing a profession for a

long time, are very apt to have their minds somewhat narrowed by it, and are therefore not capable of taking such extensive views as politicians, as ought to be done by those, who are legislating for the whole community, and not for a particular class of it. Notwithstanding this defect, the Congress of the United States has generally been distinguished for the wisdom of its political measures, and always for a large proportion of powerful and eloquent speakers. It is not surprising that the latter characteristic should mark this body; the Americans are eminently a speech-making people; the practice begins in childhood; their colleges are full of clubs for exercise in this art; the frequent recurrence of elections, and of the caucuses which precede them, is continually nourishing this passion for haranguing; and it is in this way that a young man of talent always brings himself into notice. Nearly every thing is done by direct appeal to the people; a short speech has more effect than ever so many written volumes upon the same subject; and, therefore, the talent is cultivated as the great engine of political power. Thus we see how general is the habit of public speaking, and we may infer from the use, which is made of it, what must be its character; the genius it calls forth is as rich and luxuriant as the vegetation upon the great rivers of the west, and, at the same time, as wild and unpruned. The speeches of the members of Congress might be referred to, if they had ever been published collectively, as the best proof the country has given of the talents, which it possesses. Journals of both houses are regularly printed, but they do not contain full reports of the debates. American eloquence has its own peculiar character; it is not British eloquence; it is neither so dignified, chaste, nor learned, but it is bolder and more rapid in its flights, and more impassioned in style and manner. It somewhat resembles the Irish, but it is far less laboured and artificial. The striking defect, both in the forensic and parliamentary eloquence, is bad taste, a defect which evidently arises from neglect of classic reading. We are told in the beautiful biographical sketch of Fisher Ames, one of the finest geniuses and most elequent orators which the country has produced, that he read Virgil in the

original, and Homer in Pope; and even this is a degree of erudition far greater than is possessed by many of the best speakers in the land. The occasions, which have called forth the greatest exercise of talent, were the discussions in the state legislature of the proposed federal constitution; the debates in congress upon the treaty made with this country by Mr Jay, in 1794; and those upon the repeal of the judiciary bill, and the other changes made by the friends of Mr Jefferson, when they first came into power, in 1801. Most of the speeches upon these great questions have been published, and should be read by any one, who wishes to form a just opinion of American eloquence. Those of Mr Ames, upon the two former, are contained in his works, a book which makes every reader regret, that such superior talent and genius should have been wasted upon subjects of party politics, which, from their very nature, can be but of local and momentary interest. But with him there was only one object of ambition, and that was to serve his country; to this he sacrificed the more extended fame, which he certainly must have gained, if he had written for the world. The same period presents us with another strong testimonial in favour of American intellect; it produced the federalist a work, which saved the constitution from being strangled in its infancy. These papers, written by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, but mostly by the former, contain a remarkably clear and able defence of that constitution, and may be regarded as a perfect commentary upon its principles; could they but have conferred upon it the immortality they have procured for the country, we believe none of its friends would have cause to fear for its fate.

The observations we made upon Mr Ames, might be extended to the country in general; the writing talent is all expended upon short desultory compositions; newspaper essays, and ora tions upon the anniversary of their national independence, make up the whole body of political literature. The love of this kind of political food commences in childhood, and grows with the growth; the extent of it may be inferred from the number of different newspapers published in the country, which at present exceeds five hun dred.