wish to elevate themselves above the level of their fellow-citizens, and to acquire a power independent of them. They forget that, in a republic, the magistrate, of whom they are thus suspicious, holds his power only for a short period; that when this is expired, he must retire to the station of a private citizen; and, if he has laid any burthen on the community, must afterward bear his portion of it. It must how ever be acknowledged, that some degree of this jealousy is not more natural to republicans, than it is necessary to prevent their government from degenerating into an aristocracy: but when it is carried so far as to deprive the executive power of that vigour which is requisite to enforce the laws, and to maintain the constitution, it is pregnant with ruin to those liberties which it professes to guard.

The grand vice of the American union was that which has generally attended federate governments, the want of sufficient sanction to its laws, or of power to compel the several members of it to comply with the conditions under which they were united. This was the fault of the feudal monarchies, which were only private bodies, in which the king, or liege lord, was little more than the chief in a confederacy of petty sovereigns, each of whom had a su preme authority within his own territory; hence they were frequently engaged in wars, not only with each other, but also with their king, who had no other means of reducing them to obedience, than the precarious expedients of violence, in which it was impossible always to command success: hence the kingdoms of Europe were at that time continually involved in intestine war. The same vice prevaded the Amphyctionic and Achaian leagues of ancient Greece, and is found in the Germanic body; which would long since have been dissolved, but for the vast influence which the house of Austria derives from its hereditary territories. The Helvetic league, though often mentioned as

an instance of the permanence of federal states, is equally faulty. The cantons had no common treasury, no common army, even in time of war, no common court of justice, nor any one property of federal government: they were kept together by the particular circumstances of their situation; by the consciousness which each has of its weakness as an individual state; by the dread of powerful neighbours, to one of whom they were once enslaved; and by other considerations of a similar nature.

Whatever efficacy this league may have had in common cases, it has always been found impotent in differences of great importance. Disputes concerning religion have three times occasioned the most violent and bloody quarrels, and have, in fact, dissolved their union; for the Romish cantons have since held their separate assemblies, and very little business is transacted in the general diet. The history of the United Provinces affords strong proofs, that a sovereignty over so vereigntics, a legislation to states, which does not extend to the individuals of each state, is not only a political absurdity, but is inconsistent with order and the objects of civil government, by its tendency to substitute violence for law, and the compulsion of the sword for the coercion of the magistrate. The extreme facility with which both of these states have been lately overrun and subdued by their Gallic neighbours sufficiently proves, that their safety from foreign invasion and intestine war was built on foundations equally precarious.

It was another fault, that the constitution of each state was not guaranteed by the rest; by which I do not mean that congress should interfere with the domestic concerns of the states, nor that it should prevent them from effecting, in a peaceable and lawful manner, such alterations in their respective constitutions as the majority of citizens in each may deem necessary, but only that it should guard against

such changes as may be produced by violence. The contribution of men and money to the union, by quotas assigned for each state; the want of a general and uniform power for regulating commerce, and of a national court of justice; the equality of the smaller with the larger states, with regard to the votes in congress; the power of each to issue paper currency; the too frequent change in the members of congress; and the whole power of legislation for the union being vested in a single assembly, were the principal imperfections in the old constitution of the states. The bad consequences of these are shown by what has since happened, both with regard to internal differences between the several states, and the want of the confidence of foreign powers in a confederation, for the continuance of which there was so little security.

And yet, when we consider the circumstances of the old confederation, instead of wondering that it has these faults, we are only astonished that it has so few. The articles were drawn up, not in the cool hours of peace and security, when their authors had leisure to examine all the possible consequences of each, and could protract the conclusion till every difficulty could be removed; but they were planned amid the horrors of war, when immediate exertions were necessary against a common enemy; and when it was infinitely more prudent to produce, with all expedition, a plan of union, however imperfect, which might effect an immediate combination of the several states, than to consume their time in vain deliberations in search of a perfection, of which their actual situation rendered them incapable. It was probably never intended for a lasting, and certainly not for an unalterable, constitution; but the American legislators acted judiciously in not producing a second before the inconveniences of the first had been fully experienced. These inconveniences were felt, and induced the Americans, in the year 1787, to form a

new constitution, in which most of the imperfections of the former were avoided; and which, though not entirely perfect (for what can be so that is of human invention ?) is certainly the best republican government hitherto known.

Posterity will do justice to the wisdom and honesty of the governors of the United States of America, who did not make the acknowledged imperfection of all human institutions a pretence for persisting in errors, and for perpetuating abuses, but were ready to prevent the wishes of their countrymen, by such a voluntary reformation of their constitution, as, without departing from its spirit, might best secure its permanence, and promote the great ends of government; which was ordained by Providence, not to gratify the ambition of princes, the pride of nobles, and the vanity of ministers, but to promote the wealth, the peace, and the happiness of the whole.

For the Literary Magazine.

LITERARY FASHION.

THE caprices and revolutions in literary taste form a subject of curious speculation. How many works and how many authors owe their popularity to fashion! The popularity of truly meritorious works is entirely owing to fashion, for some time, at least, after their publication. Perhaps the endurance of this popularity may be admitted as the test of merit. That popular approbation is governed almost wholly by caprice or fashion is a truth well known to booksellers. The following anecdote will show how little we are able before hand to distinguish the public pulse with accuracy:

The celebrated La Bruyere used to frequent the shop of a bookseller, named Michallet, where he amused himself with reading the new pamphlets, and playing with the book

seller's daughter, an engaging child, of whom he was very fond. One day taking the manuscript of his Characters out of his pocket, he offered it to Michallet, saying, "Will you print this? I know not whether you will gain any thing by it; but, should it succeed, let the profits make the dowry of my little friend here." The bookseller, though doubtful with respect to the result, ventured on the publication; the first impression was soon sold off; several editions were afterward printed, and the profits of the work amounted to a very large sum; and, with this fortune, Miss Michallet was afterwards very advantageously married.

For the Literary Magazine.

PICTURE OF DUBLIN.

HOW far will a native of Ireland, and especially of Dublin, assent to the truth of the following picture, drawn up by a traveller, who, so far from carrying into Ireland any prejudices against that country, was strongly prepossessed in its favour? This kind of prepossession is indeed as unfavourable to truth as the opposite. Envy and ill-humour may not pourtray an object in worse colours than disappointment. But be that as it will, it may not be unamusing or uninstructive to listen to the remarks of at least a lively describer.

The first thing, says he, that struck me, upon entering Dublin, was the singular appearance of the women, who are all without either hat or bonnet to their head. Even many of genteel appearance parade the streets in this manner, and we as rarely see a woman in Dublin with a hat on, as one elsewhere with her head uncovered.

It is impossible to do justice to the exquisite filthiness of the hotels. Every thing is fine and dirty. Our beds had canopies and plumes, with counterpanes and sheets of a most

sable hue. This appearance is not confined to hotels alone. The taverns are the same. The streets are filled with wretchedness and grandeur, idleness and extravagance. It is not the habit of a few; it is the characteristic of the nation: a popular concern to unite at once every species of dissipation, filthiness, and extortion.

The streets and avenues to this city are crowded with miserable objects, whose importunate clamours for charity are troublesome in the highest degree. In the environs, we saw numbers of dirty wretches, whose sole employment seemed to consist in divesting each other of filth and filthy insects. If you enter a fruit-shop or a tavern, a crowd of those poor creatures infest the door, through which you must press your way, and deem yourself fortunate if you escape the detached parties of vermin.

Beggars and prostitutes swarm in every street, and fill the air with their importunate cries. Extravagance is the leading trait in their character. I frequently saw children with broad laced frills to their shirts, who had neither shoes nor stockings to their feet. An instance of this may be seen at Drury's billiard-table every day, where there are two markers of this description. They will pawn their last rag for the pleasure of gaming; and I myself saw a fellow, opposite the custom-house, in Essex-street, who had seated himself upon the ground, and, having ventured every penny he had at chuck-farthing, was howling for the loss of it.

They are, in general, of a very irritable disposition, and will quarrel with each other upon the most trifling occasion. On the night of the prince of Wales's birth-day, I was walking in Dame-street, when a fellow, genteelly dressed, met a boy, who was running about with his companions. Without saying a word, he raised a loaded whip, and knocked the boy down. A mob gathered; the fellow made off, and the poor boy was carried, with a

minds of the learned and ingenious, not the least remarkable, I think, is the hypothesis of a celebrated Welch antiquarian, that the society of quakers is only a continuation of the old bardic institution or religion. In analyzing the principles of the ancient druidical religion, he is struck by the surprising coincidence between them and those of the amiable society of quakers.

Not a night passes without riot, although the police stand armed at the corner of every street. Duels, without end, continually furnish subject for conversation, and not unfrequently topics of fresh dispute. Of all the people I ever met, whether educated in the army, the navy, in the universities, or at home, the Irish are the greatest swearers.Not a word passes without an oath, vociferated in the most vehement manner, and horrid imprecations are familiarly delivered, upon the -most trivial events.

But no more of this hideous portrait. Some other travellers have, doubtless, seen things in a very different light; but I, who scarcely ever travelled further than the corner of the street in which I was born, cannot decide between the fidelity of the rival portraits. I have a good deal of Irish blood in my veins, and should be very glad to see the solum natale of my ancestors vindicated from such dreadful imputations. Perhaps some one of your readers may be of Irish blood and conversation, and withal possessed of the requisite information, and will condescend to put pen to paper, in defence of his calumniated country. INQUISITOR.

For the Literary Magazine.

ORIGIN OF QUAKERISM.

AMONG the whimsical ideas which have found harbour in the

sect originally appeared under the name of seekers, and very generally, if not first, in South Wales. It is known that George Fox arranged his system, after availing himself of the experience and labours of William Erbury and Walter Cradock, natives of that part of Wales where the bardic institution is preserved. The Welch quakers still hold their meetings in the open air, mostly in a circular inclosure called Monwent.

The more this matter is considered, the more probable it will appear, that the masterly policy, with which the quaker sect is internally organized and governed, was not the contrivance of so extravagant a fanatic as George Fox; nor the systematic tendency of its principles to reduce all revealed religion to allegory, a likely speculation of his ignorant and turbulent followers.

The revolutions of opinion, and the causes that produced them, constitute an inexhaustible source of curiosity and wonder. No sect was ever more despised, and few have ever been more unrelentingly persecuted, than the friends, for a century after the period commonly assigned for its origin; yet, of late years, its reputation has been gradually emerging from the abyss of contempt and obscurity. It began to attract the regard of two classes of men, to whose respectful attention it should seem to be less entitled than to that of any other order in society. The first class is composed of those who are either lukewarm or hostile, with regard to all religion. The quaker system being so totally exempt from those forms

and ceremonials, and especially that hierarchy or clerical establishment, which are intimately blended with all other forms of christianity, and which they stigmatize as either absurd or pernicious, they feel themselves disposed to think favourably of this system. They revere it, not because it is the true form of the religion of Jesus, but because it possesses, in their opinion, least of that, or of any religion. Its tenets approach nearest to those of their philosophy.

The second class of its admirers are those who preach up philanthropic and political equality.Those who deem the simple or popular form of government the best, fancy that they see in the policy of the quakers the purest and most perfect model of this government. It is very remarkable, indeed, that in the internal order of this society, in its legislative and judicial system, we see the most extravagant political reveries of Godwin and his followers realized. The division of the whole society into bodies sufficiently small to allow all legislative functions to be performed by the whole community assembled, without distinctions of rank, property, or even of sex; the deliberations of their public bodies, without any of those forms deemed indispensable by all other senates; decision in these assemblies accomplished without vote, or appeal to a majority; judicial powers united with the legislative, exercised without precise statutes, and executed without corporal punishment of any kind, are all characteristic of quaker as well as of Godwinian policy.

Some may observe, that the most extraordinary of these institutions imply the prevalence of civil laws and civil authority. The truth is, however, that the quaker system is intended for every condition of society, and would be the sole rule and order in a community consisting entirely of friends, as of one which composed a subordinate division of a larger community.

VOL. III. NO. XVIII.

This conformity between this sect and the speculative politicians of the present age is the chief cause of the popularity of the former with the latter. It is true, they build upon a very different foundation; and not only different, but irreconcile. able: but while inferences are the same, the diversity of premises is overlooked or disregarded. Thus the learned antiquary I have quoted above is so struck with the coincidence between the quaker and druidical systems and tenets, that he cannot help supposing the former to have originated from the latter.

For the Literary Magazine.

A LITERARY WIFE.

X.

NOTHING is so terrible, to most men, as a literary wife. Indeed, nothing is so rare. Whatever a woman is, as to literature, science, or the arts, before marriage, she generally lays aside all her learning with her maiden state. Other avocations then engross her attention, and either her mind is not suffi ciently capacious, or her taste sufficiently versatile, to enable her to divide her time between her old pursuits and her new. One of them must be neglected for the other, and the happiness of life is probably promoted by the preference usually given, in this dilemma, to the occupations of a nurse and housekeeper.

One of the most eminent examples of a literary wife on record is madame Dacier; but she was particularly fortunate in the direction which was taken by her literary and her matrimonial inclinations. This lady and her learned husband are said to have sympathized in their passion for letters and admiration of ancient authors; living in the utmost harmony to the end of their lives; united by taste and talents, but still more by affection. In Arabia, where polygamy is al

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