racter of Lord Mansfield, as asserting a doctrine to which we most readily subscribe.

"It has been argued, that his knowledge of the law was by no means profound; and that his great professional eminence was owing more to hi oratory than his knowledge. This was an early charge against him. Mr. Pope alludes to it in these lines:

"The Temple late two brother sergeants saw,
Who deem'd each other oracles of law;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at Murray as a wit."

Imitations of Horace, book ii. epist. ii.

Perhaps the opinion was founded on the notion which many entertain, that the study of polite literature is incompatible with a profound knowledge of the law; not recollecting, that the human mind necessarily requires some relaxation, and that a change of study is the greatest and most natural of all relaxations, to a mind engaged in professional pursuits.—Besides,—the commune vinculum between all branches of learning, preserves the habits of application, of thinking, and of judging, which are lost in the modes of dissipation usu lly resorted to for relaxation. The chancellor d'Aguesseau,* and even the stern Du Moulin, were eminently distinguished by their general literature. Lord Bacon's various and profound knowledge is universally known; and many works of lord Hale are published, which show, that to the deepest and most extensive knowledge of all the branches of the law, the constitution, and the antiquities of his country, he united a general acquaintance with the history of other nations; that he had given much of his time to the study of theology; that he occasionally sacrificed to the muses, and spent some time in the curious and instructive amusements of experimental philosophy. It was late in life that lord Hardwicke took up the study of polite literature, but he afterward pursued it with great earnestness. His son, Lord Chancellor Yorke, always called himself afugitive from the muses: and, amidst his vast variety of occupations, still found time to converse with them. The elegant attainments of Sir William Scott have not prevented him from being the most eminent civilian of his time, and es sentially contributing, by the profound wisdom, perfect justice, and admirable expression of his decisions, in the numerous cases which are brought from every part of the globe to the court in which he presides, to the high elevation which his country holds in the scale of nations. Lord Thurlow's passion for classical literature is generally known. Each of these great men might have said with Cicero, “Quis tandem me reprehendat, aut quis mihi jure succenseat, si quantum cæteris, ad suas res obeundas, quantum ad festos dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, et ad ipsam requiem animi et corporis conceditur temporis; quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis, quantum denique aleæ, quantum pilæ, tantum mihi egomet, ad hæc studia recolenda sumpsero.”

It is singular, that the name of Sir William Jones, whose accomplishments as a lawyer, and abilities as a judge (though he was undoubtedly greater as a scholar,) have never been called in question, should be omitted among these illustrious exam

*This great magistrate used to say, "Le changement d'étude est toujours un délassement pour moi."

ples. We doubt also whether Mr. Butler himself has been a worse conveyancer, for having ascended to the antiquities of his own peculiar study, or suffered his mind to expatiate occasionally in the fields of general knowledge.

The Reminiscent expresses his satisfaction, on a recapitulation of his own works, that he has never personally attacked the public or private character of any individual. For one who has written so much, and often on topics political and controversial, in books, pamphlets, and magazines, it is indeed rather singular, that he should never have been guilty, even of the venial sin of reviewing, as the cutting up of authors is denominated in the cant of modern times. Whatever unamiable pleasure the dissection of an unfortunate subject may yield the professional operator in this department, for the moment, we doubt much whether the recollection of such performances can be attended with comfortable feelings. On contemplating, in the aggregate, the works of an author whose labours have been of real benefit to mankind, one is almost tempted to renounce the 'ungentle craft.' To have given one useful treatise to the world, in any branch of science or knowledge, is to have rendered society and the writer himself far better service, than to have set fifty poor devils dancing and blaspheming, and abusing the world and their reviewers.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF MONTI.

This! oh ye Gods! to seat me by her side,
And feed my hungry soul upon her looks,
And on her words, and on her angel smiles!
To sit so near her sweet lips, that I feel
Upon my own, their warm and balmy breath.
Oh! then, methinks, dissolving fires from Heaven
Thrill through my trembling frame. Before my eyes
Floats a dull doubtful mist, and the choaked word
Dies struggling in my throat; for there I feel,
Girding with violent grasp, a hand of fire.
Then long and deep, and longer deeper still,
Venting the flame that feeds upon my heart,
The thick pant labours from my gasping lips-
Till I can bear no more, and must, or seize
On her dear hand, devour it with my kisses,
And bathe it with my tears, or tear myself
Swiftly away, and with averted steps

Rush wildly forth, beating my tortured brow.
Vel. II. No. I.
6

THE AMERICAN.

No. I.

On the principles which will probably regulate the development of imaginative talent in America.

Nothing is more common, with transatlantic critics, than the expression of wonder, that a young country like America, should have furnished little or nothing of what they call a young country's literature. "Imagination," they assert, "is the attribute of youth. America is young. Then why is not America imaginative?"

"That is question now;

And then comes answer like an A B C book :'

"Because the intellectual capabilities of Americans are inherently inferior to those of Europeans. There is some indescribable something in the north-east winds, or in the river Mississippi, a je ne sais quoi in the climate or the food, in the Indian summer, for example, or in the Indian corn, that so debases the mind, and so bronzes the face, that a very few years are enough to turn all the boys and girls of America into downright Cherokees and Mohawks. Any one who looks at the portrait of Washington cannot fail to be convinced of this truth."* In this way, with question and answer all to themselves, the business is speedily settled. The inference thus drawn is gravely reserved by these marvellous logicians, as a valuable theorem for future occasions; and such is the laughable solemnity with which their exterminating apothegms are uttered, that one would almost suppose that some of these wiseacres do really hallucinate, and believe at least a part of what they say. To those who reflect for a moment, however, the sophism will appear about as cunning as the puzzle of a horse and no horse," and divers other quibbles, with which, when school-boys, we recollect to have been sadly perplexed. A country is denominated young in two senses: first, before science and art have matured and sobered the character of its intellect; and, secondly, when the date of its original settlement is recent. The character of a country, young in the first sense, is said to be, (we know not with what truth,) ardour and irregularity of fancy. Now, America is youthful only in the second sense; and to require that we shall predicate of the one, whatever is said of the other, is to be guilty of a gross and palpable sophism, (we speak to the learned,) a dicto ambiguè.

* See Quarterly Review, No. LIX. page 12.

Imaginative writing prevails at two very different æras in the history of a nation-in the period of rudeness, and in the age of refinement. In the first case, poetry is very little else than the natural effusion of ardent and uncultivated minds; and, of course, where the learned and enlightened are comparatively few, it will constitute the general language of society. By this, we do not mean to say, that the dialect of ordinary conversation ever excited the peculiar emotions which poetical language is known to excite ; but only, that the style of discourse which seems pedestris' or familiar, to semi-civilized barbarians, would appear highly figurative to us. We are therefore willing to admit, that if America were just emerging from barbarism, there would be reason in requiring, that our poetry, and even that ourprose should possess that character which Europeans would denominate imaginative. But we are neither in this condition, nor in that of refinement, when poetry is cultivated not as the ordinary vehicle of thought, but in order to administer to the pleasures of the idle and the opulent.

Much has been said (we believe, without just discrimination) of the favourable influence which free institutions exert over most of the fine arts. There are many reasons which induce us to believe, that the progress of the arts will be necessarily slower (though no doubt surer and steadier) under a government like ours, than under the control of an irresponsible sovereign.

In order to comprehend distinctly the principles, which, in all probability, will eventually determine the progress, not only of the liberal arts, but of all the useful interests and peaceful occupations of our citizens, it is necessary to study with attention the important and interesting changes, which cannot but result from the removal of the sovereignty from the hands of a powerful aristocracy to its proper and legitimate seat—an intelligent people.. The subject is the more curious, inasmuch as we are not aware, that much attention has been turned to a consideration of the alterations in society and government, which this single circumstance will one day create.

When a people is either too ignorant to understand its rights, too weak or too indolent to recover them, or too little acquainted with the spirit of government to exercise discreetly the functions of sovereignty, it will necessarily happen that the interests of that people will be regulated by a few men, the craftiest and strongest among them. In that case, religion, education, the trades and the professions, the arts and the sciences, will be controlled by the caprice of the oligarchs, to whose dominion the people have agreed, or are compelled to submit.

Now, no error is more common than the belief, that rulers may be found and have been found, who are able, by the wise and prudent exercise of arbitrary power, so to regulate the interests of the state, as to advance it to a very high degree of political prosperity.* We venture to solicit particular attention of the reader to this part of our subject, because we are convinced that it involves considerations of great theoretical beauty, and still greater practical importance. So great is the general over-estimate of the capacity of rulers to increase, by a system of well directed impulses and checks, the welfare of a nation, that, even at this day, even among those who are not wholly unacquainted with the baneful operation of a system of restriction and encouragement, it is by no means uncommon to hear the highest and most unthinking admiration expressed for the wisdom of those monarchs, who are said to have secured, by wise laws, the welfare of their subjects. Pericles, Augustus, Julius II., Leo X., and Louis XIV., have been extolled to the skies for the munificent protection and support, as it is called, which they afforded to literature, the science and the arts in their respective dominions. The historian delights to expatiate on the universities splendidly endowed, or the monuments of art expensively erected during the reigns of these illustrious benefactors of mankind; he enlarges on the wisdom of their sumptuary laws, and descants at full length on the legislative virtue by which luxury was repressed, and industry encouraged. He disclaims, in rhetorical flourishes, on the splendid effects of princely liberality, and talks in fine flowing periods, of the exquisite productions of manufactural skill, and the elaborated specimens of art, which he seems to regard as unquestionable proofs of national prosperity. If it were insinuated that much of this apparent wealth was the effect of any thing but the positive enactments of the sovereign; and that precisely where it was undoubtedly induced by the influence of government, it was there particularly, the evidence of an unwise and unjust distribution of property and power; if he were told that the mag

* It is painful to contemplate the deplorable absurdities into which Plato, Sir Thomas Moore, Milton, Locke, and Hume, were betrayed, in attempting to fabricate systems of government. Every body knows what lamentable nonsense Fenelon has put into the mouth of the goddess of wisdom, when she undertakes to instruct Idomeneus in the arts of legislation. One would really imagine, that the authors and inventors of Utopias actually believed that the great bulk of mankind were, and would ever remain in a state of the most helpless fatuity; and that the great object of government was to bribe and to threaten, to lead and to drive, these stupid and ignorant creatures into a sort of undesirable happiness.