nificence he beheld was merely the effect of a forcible concentration of that light, which, but for the application of this force, all portions of society might have nearly equally enjoyed; if he were assured that the glory of a few men was purchased by a ruinous demand upon the happiness of the many; that public faith and public interest were violated; that the Parthenon and the Odeum might be built; that the most grinding exactions were resorted to, and all Christendom laid under compulsive contribution, that the expense of building St. Peter's might be defrayed; that the rights of property were disregarded and despised, in order that the nation might enjoy the frivolous reputation of fabricating sumptuous velvets and silks ;-if he were told all this, he might perhaps be made to pause and reflect, to what extent this glittering and show were safe indications of the wisdom of the laws, or the welfare of the people. In fact, it is not easy to avoid being deluded by some of the alleged symptoms of national intelligence and happiness; and accordingly, no error is more common than that which prevails on this subject. As travelers, sometimes, in order to illustrate the wealth of a state, enumerate the splendid palaces that adorn its cities, so some men point out a few great names in literature or science as a proof of the quantity of general intelligence, and recount the prosperity and enjoyment of a few, in evidence of the flourishing condition of the whole. If the means of subsistence and the lights of science are not generally distributed, we see nothing to rejoice at, in the contemplation of the great wealth or the great wisdom of a few individuals. On the contrary, whereever riches or intelligence are unequally possessed, the amount of human happiness is obviously less, than where, from the wise distribution of political forces, or rather from the absence of all disturbing interferences, the wealth and the wisdom, which preposterous restrictions prevent from distributing their benefits, are suffered freely and by their own expansibilities to extend in all directions unimpeded through the region of society. It would no doubt be a delightful thing to be able to boast of our magnificent churches, superb galleries and splendid theatres; to enumerate our manufactories of elegant laces and expensive porcelains; but to the rational philanthropist, it is vastly more delightful to reflect that the absence of concentrated splendour and accumulated wealth, is far more than balanced by another effect of the cause of this absence-the comfort and convenience of thousands and millions of our fellow-creatures. In the same way, it would be doubtless a source of great national pride, if we could exhibit the more finished productions of the pencil and the chisel; if we could boast of our Webers, our Rossinis, our Chauntreys and our Thorwaldsens; if our rivers and lakes were consecrated by the presence of the Mases, and the beautiful and glorious visions of the imaginative world were portrayed by the pen of a native son of song. But is it not a subject of greater exultation, that the circumstances which prevent the encouragement of all that is elaborate and exquisite in the arts, are identically the causes of the equable diffusion of intelligence? Certainly it is. Governments should It is be constituted, not to afford strong stimulus to the talents of a few, but to inform and enlighten the minds of the many. no less unwise than unjust to sacrifice the comforts of millions to the glory of a limited number of men of talent or of genius; and if we were called upon to decide between two systems of polity, one of which would diffuse, and the other concentrate intelligence; one of which would tend to make every man informed, the other to make a few men illustrious, we should not hesitate a moment in the choice. Monarchical governments tend more or less to produce an unequal distribution of intelligence and property. Thousands are starving that one man may build a magnificent palace; thousands are ignorant that a few favoured savans may be provided with the means of acquiring expensive science or brilliant reputation. In a free representative democracy, (the government which an educated common people will always endeavour to obtain,) the case will be directly the reverse. The nearer the character of the national delegation approaches to a just and precise representation of the several interests, the more exactly will the result of all their compromises indicate the respective intensities of the various wishes of the nation. A system will be thus produced, in which the interests will succeed in obtaining liberties or advantages very nearly proportionate to their respective strengths, and those, in a free country, will geneially be proportioned to their rights. Not that this distribution of advantages will be determined and extended by the wisdom of our legislatures. This can never be the case in America, for the people are at least as well informed as their servants, on the subject of their interests. And indeed it ought never to be attempted, even if our agents were endued with all the wisdom which political writers seem disposed to ascribe to them. The attempt to distribute encouragement, by one statute in favour of this interest, and another in favour of that, is the very bane and curse of legislation. It is the pit into which the makers of laws are perpetually falling. There is something so imposing in the pretension, so noble and so mag nificent in the desire, of encouraging the industry, and directing the enterprises of a nation, that nothing but the clearest and soundest good sense can prevent the members of the national councils from yielding to this flattering delusion. There fortunately, however, exists a check to this spirit of overlegislation. The claims of rival interests will pour in from all quarters to the centre that promises to satisfy them all; and these solicitations must tend, in some measure, to balance and neutralize each other. Unable to comply with all demands, our assemblies will be driven by necessity, to the policy which ought, at once, to be adopted by choice, that is, to leave the whole affair to be regulated by that principle of self-adjustation, so active and so effectual in enlightened communities. Industry, both physical and intellectual, will be gradually «re ¦ signed to the influence of unrestricted trade; and we doubt not, its progress, though not so rapid, will be vastly more uniform and healthy than when harassed by a complicated system of encouragements, checks and restrictions. In a country, where the will of the nation is the law, and where the people are sufficiently enlightened to understand, and sufficiently active to prosecute their rights, the consequence must, obviously, be those regulations which afford the minimum of aggregate dissatisfaction to all the claimants concerned in the discussion. The laws of a free people, if rightly considered, are only so many contracts between the various parties or interests in the state, executed by the agency of authorized commissioners or deputies from each. These commissioners meet to act according to the instructions they receive, and not, as some Utopians pretend, to erect themselves into judges of all the interests of the state. The pretensions of these would-be Minoses and Rhadamanthuses could only serve to cover them with disgrace; and the day, indeed, will come when the attempt on the part of the agents of the people to teach them the nature and extent of their various interests, will be regarded as an arrogant and insolent assumption of a province which, in no way, belongs to them. The arrangements negociated by the deputies of the people being in the nature of voluntary contracts, would be made on the principle of exchanges, and supposing that the parties are intelligent, all would be gainers by every new interchange of benefits. The result of the mutual compromises of the interests thus represented, would be, we repeat, the gradual abolition, or rather the decay and disappearance of all such artificial and partial restrictions as rulers impose upon their people with the chimerical expectation of manoeuvring 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. So young and so unhappy?-'Tis most strange, Has struck his shaft so deep, that chance nor change So young and so unhappy ?-Can it be That eyes so bright must fill with ceaseless tears? Now bend in desolate grief, and fold in wildest fears ? II. Shall no returning morn with healing breath To rear the ruins of thy broken heart? May to the tuneless lyre again sweet voice impart? III. Despair not thus, young mourner-though so void IV. Ah! wonder not that Edwin knows the cares Urge on thy lonely grief obtrusive lay. The minstrel hand the strings of hope must sway To soothe with timid song a sufferer's pain, 7 |