their subjects into happiness by systems of vexations and eternal interferences. In an enlightened free government, there will therefore ensue a more equal distribution and a greater security of property, than under any arbitrary government whatever. And for this reason-that security of possession, being one of the strongest and most extensive public interests, will result, with vastly more certainty, from the free operation of that interest represented in the legislative councils, than it can from the fallible wisdom and precarious generosity of the wisest and most generous of princes. The same influence of policy will oppose the establishment of all patronages, bounties, monopolies and entailments, whereby the inequality of property is artificially determined. It will equally oppose, on the other hand, all levelling systems, Agrarian laws, extortions from the rich, and all the farrago of enactments, by which the equality of property is artificially determined. The effects of this freedom from restriction will be equally seen in the distribution of knowledge. There will, on one hand, be no expensive provisions for instruction which the taxed are unwilling to support; no privileged literary or scientific institutions forced upon the people in spite of themselves; no contrivances, in short, by which the inequality of knowledge is artificially determined. On the other hand, there will be no restrictions on opinions, no vulgar prejudices against science or literature, or at least, no attempts to forbid or discourage the desire of information or the boldness of discussion, by which the equality of knowledge is artificially determined. Property and knowledge, will no doubt be unequally distributed; but this inequality will result from the operation of the natural causes which determine it. This is precisely what ought to take place. It is at once the most natural and the most beneficent disposition of the goods of this life.

We by no means pretend, that the political institutions of America are so constituted, or can be so constituted for some time to come, as to recognize, as completely as the philosopher could wish, the rights of property and the freedom of opinion. The restrictive system has its advocates in every part of the union; and many attempts are annually made to direct the Occupations and controul the opinions of the citizen. But still we have attained, beyond doubt, a nearer approach to the government best fitted for a virtuous and intelligent people, than is anywhere else to be found.

As this number has already reached the limits we are obliged to prescribe to our articles, we shall defer the consideration of the influence of our laws upon the development of imagi

native talent (the subject we proposed to discuss) until a more convenient opportunity.

TO ELLEN.

I.

So young and so unhappy?—Tis most strange,
Thou child of early sighs, that Misery

Has struck his shaft so deep, that chance nor change
Can ever bring one hope of joy to thee!

So young and so unhappy?-Can it be

That eyes so bright must fill with ceaseless tears?
Must that young brow, that once in maiden glee
Bade sweet defiance to advancing years,

Now bend in desolate grief, and fold in wildest fears P

II.

Shall no returning morn with healing breath
Revive upon thy cheek the expiring rose?
Must thou provoke the lingering hand of death,
If still thine eyes must weep, those eyes to close?
Is there no way to win thee to repose-

To rear the ruins of thy broken heart?
No way the scattered fragments to dispose
Again to life and joy-as minstrel's art

May to the tuneless lyre again sweet voice impart?

III.

Despair not thus, young mourner-though so void
Thy heart of hope, that heart is living yet;
The diamond shattered, but not all destroyed,
For skilful hands the broken gem shall set.
Though thou in life's rude sea hast ever met
Its rudest billows, thou may'st stem the wave
In triumph still; for why shouldst thou forget
That there is one above, who loves to save

When heaves dark ocean high, and unchained tempests rave›

IV.

Ah! wonder not that Edwin knows the cares
Thy heart would hide from all the world away!
Nor blame the bard that all untold he dares

Urge on thy lonely grief obtrusive lay.

The minstrel hand the strings of hope must sway
When gentle maids of cureless woes complain:
Forgive him, lady, then, if he essay

To soothe with timid song a sufferer's pain,
For Edwin's heart is kind, though rude bis untanght strain,
Vol. II. No. I.

7

V.

Yes! Ellen will forgive the fond desire
The secret source of maiden grief to know;
Nor deem her bard too bold, if he aspire
With Music's balmy breath to soothe her wo.
And she shall see him still with joy forego
The meed of loftier lay or blither string;
Enough that Ellen's tears shall gentlier flow,
That Ellen's sighs, with fainter murmuring,
To distant Edwin's ear, the carrier breeze shall bring.

TRISTAN THE GRAVE,

A German Story.

Dulcior risu tum mihi fletus erit. Ov. IBIS.

Among the many authenticated tales of such as from profane curiosity or distress have been led into improper commerce with evil agents, to the loss of their peace of mind on earth, and the eminent jeopardy of their immortal souls, the following instance, related to me by an intelligent Englishman, as having taken place in his own family, some time before the Hanover rats, much to the disquiet of Squire Western, made their way over the channel, deserves never to be forgotten.

In the Duchy of Bremen, in Lower Saxony, there lived, at the period referred to, a very respectable baron and his lady, whose name, as it is still extant, in their posterity, I shall conceal from motives of delicacy. I shall not describe the extent of their territory, the number of their vassals, or the grandeur of their baronial castle. Whoever has read the Barons of Felsham may form to himself a pretty accurate picture of their state and pageantry. The baron traced his ancestry up to Bruno the First, and his lady was lineally descended from Cuniza of Suabia. Noble in blood, and agreeable in their persons, the torch of Hymen burut brightly at their wedding, in the shape of a large bonfire; and ere the chaste planet, that silvered the towns and turrets of their ancient castle, had waxed and waned through the cycle of the sacred number, a third person appeared in the family, as the lawful heir of all its wealth and dignities.

On this occasion another bonfire was made, bells were rung, till the towers tottered; and the baron, as was thought proper in that age, got particularly drunk, in honour of the new comer. Tristan, so this important person was named, after his

-grandfather, was in truth a comely child; perfect in his parts and proportions; with a sober and serene countenance, which seemed to indicate that he was born to be a great dignitary in the church, or in the state. His lady mother, and her attendants soon noticed, however, a strange idiosyncrasy in the hopes of the family; which was, that he never laughed, nor indeed did his features assume the faintest appearance of smiling. He could cry, as other babes are wont to do, and shed as many tears as are usual in the period of childhood; but after the squall was over, and the cloud cleared away, no sunshine illumined his face, and sparkled in his eyes. He looked as sedate as a little stone angel on a monument; his lips were as rigidly fixed; and his gaze expressed but little more intelligence. In vain they tickled and toused him: instead of chirruping and smiling, he showed his dissatisfaction at this appeal to his cutaneous sensibilities, by sneezing and snarling; and if it was prolonged, by obstreperous lamentation. In vain did the maids snap their fingers, distort their countenances, and make every variety of grimace and ridiculous posture before him. He seemed to look upon their monkey tricks with an eye of compassion, and relaxed not a whit the composed arrangement of his muscles.

This unseasonable and imperturbable gravity of little Tristan was a thorn in the flesh of his mamma, who had noticed a suspicious looking beldam about her premises, shortly before he was born, and began to fear that some charm had been wrought upon him, which would make him unhappy all his life. She communicated the matter of her anxiety to the Earon; who, since his jollification at Tristan's advent, had taken little or no notice of him; being better employed in harrying his tenants, catching poachers, and hunting such game as was left on his domains. When he found it rather sparse there, he sometimes got by accident into those of his neighbours. He treated the sub ect of his wife's uneasiness with unbecoming levity; and swore that when his son was old enough to understand Dutch, he would make him laugh till his sides ached, with the tales of the Fox and the Lion, the Devil and the old woman, and many others, of which he had a choice collection. To prove their virtue he offered to tell them to his wife, who civilly told him to go about his business. The learned Hieronymus Marascallerus, a great astrologer, who superintended at present the baron's kennel, and was to take charge of his son's education, when he should arrive at a suitable age, also stoutly denied the agency of any diablerie in the matter; but said that Tristan's

sober demeanour was purely the result of natural causes, he having been born when Saturn and Jupiter were in conjunction in Libra. His temperament was therefore that of a generous melancholy; but whether he would make a great poet or politician or captain, Marascallerus could not yet decide, as part of his ephemeris had been eaten by the rats, and he could not adjust the horoscope to his satisfaction.

He

I am no philosopher; and cannot therefore say from the want of what particular bump or organ, or from what metaphysical obliquity it proceeded, but certain it is, that as Tristan grew up to be a tall boy, and verged to man's estate, the same utter insensibility to ludicrous exhibitions and associations displayed itself in his physiognomy and character. was not unsocial in his disposition; but very condescendingly joined with the younger fry of the village; and in all sports and. games, where violent exercise, or that dexterity which is called manual wit was concerned, he was distinguished for length of wind and ingenuity. When any one of his playmates tumbled head over heels, broke the bridge of his nose, or put any of his articulations out of joint, he saw nothing but the detriment done to the body of the suffering individual, and was incensed by the boisterous, and to him inexplicable merriment of the others. When he had clandestinely appropriated to his own use any chattel that belonged to his neighbours, he acted with as much nonchalance as a Spartan, or one of our own Aborigines would have exhibited on the same occasion. And he showed himself a true son of his excellency the baron in this, that the idea of restitution never seemed to enter into his conceptions as a possible contingency. Of abstract wit or humour, as the cause of risibility, he had no notion at all. He listened to a droll story, as he would to a tragical one; taking an apparent interest in the incidents, but finding no farther relish in their strange combination, than as they might have been mere matters of fact. In a bull he saw nothing but the ignorance of the maker; and he did not detest puns, (if he ever heard any,) because he never suspected the jest. He heard his father's crack-joke without any other expression than that of wonder, as if he half thought the old gentleman was crazy. The baron, accordingly, set him down as of shallow capacity, and abused Marascallerus, in no gentle strain, for neglecting the culture of his mind. The latter, however, in his double capacity of dog-keeper and tutor, was used to hard work, and occasionally to hard kicks; and satisfied with the wisdom of his own predictions, he trained his pupil as he physicked his quadrupeds, upon astrological princi