lect. The English mind lives on the past. Rich | profound comments on the nature of its influence. in its capital, it makes no account of future acquisitions. It can not discern the signs of the times. It does not hail the new forms that loom up on the horizon-the new and gigantic thoughts which can not find fit raiment in any old wardrobe.

There is a minority of perceptive minds in the nation that appreciate every soaring of intellect, every whisper of a divine idea. They present a strong counterbalance to the prevailing tendencies of the day. Studious, contemplative, experimenting, they are the teachers of their countrymen in spite of themselves. The two classes, which represent genius and animal force, interact on each other, and produce a salutary counterpoise. Though the first consists only of a dozen souls, and the second of twenty millions, their accord and discord forever yield the power of the English State.

We have given a rapid abstract of some of the chief points in Mr. Emerson's volume. But no one should fail to peruse the work for himself. It will not command universal assent, and its inconsecutive, aphoristic style, makes it liable to misconstruction. Still, where the positions of the author can not be accepted, they are rich in suggestion, and open a fruitful vein of wise reflection. The fresh vitality of the composition, though toned

The poetry and fiction of the day, according to Mr. Emerson, are circumscribed by the same municipal limits. Dickens writes London tracts. Like Hogarth, he is a painter of English details, local and temporary in his tints and style, as well as in his aims. Bulwer appeals to the worldly ambition of the student, and reverences intellect for its temporal uses. Thackeray finds that God has made no place in the universe for the heart, and that we must renounce ideals, and accept London. Macaulay explicitly teaches that good means material commodity-good to eat, good to wear-that the glory of modern philosophy is to yield economical inventions-that its merit is to avoid ideas, and to avoid morals. The triumph of the Baconian philosophy over the old Platonic, he thinks, is the disentangling the intellect from theories of the all-down below the standard of blood-heat, presents Fair and all-Good, and pinning it down to making a better sick-chair and a better wine-whey for an invalid. The eminent benefit of astronomy is its improvement of navigation, enabling the grocer to bring his wine and lemons to the London market at a cheaper rate. The civility and religion of England for a thousand years thus ends in reducing the intellect to a sauce-pan. The English cant of practical covers a world of skepticism. The doctrine of Macaulay makes reason and conscience a romantic pretension. The fine arts fall to the ground. Beauty, except as a luxurious commodity, does not exist.

Coleridge is one of those who save England from the reproach of no longer possessing the capacity to appreciate what rarest wit the island has produced. But even with his catholic mind and his hunger for ideas, the traditional Englishman in him was too strong for the philosopher-he fell into accommodations with the spirit of the age, and attempted to reconcile the Gothic rule of the Anglican Church with eternal ideas.

Doubtless there are exceptions to the limited tone of English thought, especially in the region of general culture, where there is no end to the graces and amenities, the wit, sensibility, and erudition of the learned class. But the artificial character of all English performance is also visible in letters. Much of their æsthetic production is antiquarian and manufactured. Literary reputations have been achieved by forcible men, whose relation to literature was purely accidental, but who were driven by the arbitrary tastes of the day into their several careers. The bias of Englishmen to practical skill has reacted on the national mind. They worship the five mechanic powers even in their song. The tone of the steam-whistle is heard in the voice of their modern muse. The poem is created as an ornament and finish of their monarchy, and not as the morning-star of a brighter day. Every literary production is mechanical in its structure, as if inspiration and wisdom had ceased among men. No poet dares murmur of beauty out of the precinct of his rhymes. No priest dares hint at a Providence which does not patronize English utility.

Still England is not hopelessly given over to material idolatry. Mr. Emerson recognizes the presence of a redeeming power, and offers some

a constant attraction to the amateurs of marked idiosyncrasies, and with its seductive beauties of expression, will always insure a succession of charmed readers.

The third volume of Memoirs of Celebrated Characters, by LAMARTINE (published by Harper and Brothers), contains sketches of William Tell, Madame de Sévigné, Milton, Bossuet, and Antar, the nomadic hero of the Arabian desert. The subjects are treated with the usual gorgeous diffuseness of the author, who never fails to bring their romantic features into strong relief, though he does not always attain to the highest standard of historical precision. Of the notices in this volume, that of Bossuet is written with the greatest unction, the theme affording an enticing field for the display of biographical eloquence. Bossuet is regarded as the representative of the priestly order, and in this point of view he is made to fill a prominent place in the gallery of celebrated men. This eminent person, according to Lamartine, was born for the priesthood. The altar, the vestibule of the cathedral, the pontifical robe, and the tiara, were the natural environment of his being. The imagination could not picture Bossuet in the habit of a layman. His nature and his profession are so indissolubly blended, that they can not be separated even in thought. He was not a man, but an oracle. This idea is expanded through many pages, and wrought up into a magnificent portraiture of a Roman Catholic pontiff. Less felicitous is the memoir of Milton, whose character Lamartine could not comprehend without difficulty, and whose stern and sublime virtues have little in common with the imaginative temperament of the brilliant Frenchman. So little was he intent on historical accuracy in the composition of this sketch, that he makes the wife of Milton's old age the object of his early love and the model of Eve in Paradise Lost.

The Old Régime and the Revolution, translated by JOHN BONNER from the French of M. De TocqueVILLE. (Published by Harper and Brothers.) No two writers are more strongly contrasted than De Tocqueville and Lamartine. The latter imaginative, rhetorical, impulsive, is often lost in a delirium of fine sentiment; the former deliberative, reflective, patient both of thought and research, indulges in no expression that is not marked by logical precision. The tendencies of De Tocqueville to philo

sophical accuracy are no less strongly-marked than | and leader of armed masses. But his great qualithe passion of Lamartine for poetical exaggeration. ties were fit for use only against his enemies. There Both exhibit a natural aptitude for historical dis-is no evidence of the grand and beneficent views on quisition; but while Lamartine is intent on seizing the subject of imperial government, or of his intenthe picturesque and romantic aspects of the scene, tions favorable to the improvement of mankind, De Tocqueville applies the analytic power, of which for which some authors give him credit. The ache is a master, to discover and set forth the latent quisition of universal dominion was the masterconnection of events. In this work, which is pre- passion of his soul, and had he lived a few years liminary to an elaborate history of the French longer, his career of conquest would probably have Revolution, he enters into an investigation of the extended to the whole habitable globe. Mr. Grote social and political condition of the eighteenth cen- pays a warm and admirable tribute to the charactury. His special aim is to explain the causes of the ter of Demosthenes, vindicating the noble statesdevelopment of the Revolution in France, rather man of Athens from the accusations of his enemies. than in the other European countries over which it impended; to show why it issued with spontaneous force from the society which it was to destroy; and how the old monarchy was impelled to such a sudden and total fall. Divesting the revolutionary movement of its extraneous appendages, it was not an attack on the sovereignty of religious creeds, but essentially a struggle for social and political progress. It did not tend to perpetuate disorder, but rather to increase the influence of public authority. It was not adapted to change the fundamental character of civilization, or the laws which are at the basis of European society; but to abolish the institutions of the feudal system which had prevailed for centuries, and to substitute in their place a government of more uniformity and sim-opment of character. The story hinges on a limplicity, and resting on the foundation of equality among all ranks. M. de Tocqueville sustains his views by forcible historical illustrations, and the use of an ingenious and refined analysis. His style is a model of philosophical clearness, and though aiming at precision, rather than elegance, is by no means deficient in the latter quality.

Victoria, by CAROLINE CHESEBRO, is the most finished performance of the gifted authoress, and fully illustrates her ability to sustain a protracted flight in the realms of imagination. In her peculiar sphere Miss Chesebro has no rival but herself, and in this work we think she has distanced the former productions of her unique pen. Certainly it is not free from the faults to which we have heretofore alluded in her novels, but we do not regret that she adheres to the inspirations of her own genius, in spite of the temptations to a contrary course for the sake of popular effect. She does not aim at picturesque narrative, although there are many passages of remarkable descriptive power in the volume, so much as at the analysis and devel

ited number of persons, but they are all the subjects of curious psychological experiment. The writer, though preserving a tone of intense and formidable earnestness, sometimes appears to sport with the strange combinations of passion, like the child with the forms and colors of the kaleidoscope. Hence she is apt to tempt the patience of her read

lution of character, but are eager to hurry on to the denouement of the plot. Regarding the work less in the light of a novel founded on outward incidents than as an attempt to unfold the hidden mysteries of the soul under peculiar influences, we can not deny its profound and subtle power. It often shows a wonderful insight into human consciousness, and a no less wonderful skill in constructing a tragedy of deep pathos from materials that lie not on the surface, but must be sought in the interior of the heart. The weird character of the story not only sheds its own twilight gloom over the scene, but forces many of the incidents, and one or two of the personages, into what seems a needless obscurity. The uninitiated reader would like a more explicit disclosure of the antecedents of the stately and saintly Margaret Gladstone, and also of some passages in the history of the Reverend Mr. Rossiter, and of the father and mother of Maud. Too much is here left to the unassisted imagination, and a dim haze is thus cast over the constituents of the narrative. (Published by Derby and Jackson.)

History of Greece, by GEORGE GROTE. (Pub-ers, who do not wish to dwell on the gradual evolished by Harper and Brothers.) This great work is completed by the publication of the twelfth volume. At this day, it is superfluous to comment On its merits. During its gradual progress through the press, it has gained the reputation, with scarce a dissenting voice, of surpassing all previous works in our language on Grecian history. Equally familiar with classical authorities and modern speculations, at once a man of letters and a man of affairs, Mr. Grote has brought to its composition the resources of a wide and varied experience, of rare philological acumen, of political knowledge, of consummate historical tact, and of no less impartiality of mind than sagacity of judgment. His devotion to freedom is never permitted to interfere with the fairness of his statements. In respect to style, he attaches more importance to vigor than to elegance. His diction is compact, nervous, expressive, but not seldom inclining to harshness, and never softened by the graces of rhetorical art. In the volume now brought out, the conquests of Alexander and the character of Demosthenes occupy the principal place. As a military man, Alexander is regarded by Mr. Grote as possessing all Evelyn Marston is a new novel from the fertile the qualities which go to constitute the highest pen of Mrs. MARSH. The scene is laid in London, excellence either in a general or a soldier. He toward the close of the last century, and describes combined chivalrous courage with never-sleeping the contrasts between wealth and poverty which vigilance against reverse, and abundant resource were no less characteristic of the metropolis at that in adapting himself to new contingencies. His day than at the present time. The characters of achievements are the earliest specimens of scien- Marston, Evelyn, and Armand du Chastel are tific military operation on a large scale, and of its drawn with the vividness of life; and though not overwhelming effects. He appeals to the imagin- without a trace of exaggeration in the incidents of ation, more than any other personage of antiquity, the narrative, present a true picture of the everyby his matchless development of effective force, not day workings of the pride of genius and the insoonly as an individual warrior, but as an organizer lence of vulgar wealth. (Harper and Brothers.)

Editor's Cable.

TE had occasion, three months ago, to review | laws, and a host of absolute fallacies which had

W the progress which the United States have

made during the past eighty years in the mechanical and industrial arts. The subject naturally tempted us to indulge in a little self-glorification; nor do we now desire to recall what we said. The triumphs achieved by citizens of the United States in art, science, and mechanical enterprise, the noble products of American genius, are legitimate objects of contemplation; and there is nothing unwholesome or unseemly in the feeling of pride they awaken. On the contrary, that sentiment can hardly fail to stimulate energy and quicken emulation. Within proper limits, boasting on such a subject, with such grounds, is both justifiable and useful.

There are other points of view, however, in which it is not less beneficial to contemplate the fruits of the past eighty years.

crystallized into customs or legislative which had

that the English people deemed these things good and right. On the contrary, whenever they expressed an opinion it was to condemn them, to expose their mischief, or deride their absurdity. But with the knowledge they thought they had of republics, they prudently resolved to bear the ills which they understood rather than run the risk of ills which they could not guage, and of which their imagination conjured up a fearful and alarming picture. They were satisfied that democracy was intrinsically unsafe and fraught with danger.

It is the glory of the American Confederacy that it has furnished a practical refutation of the error underlying this theory; that it has proved that peace, and order, and good government, and prosperity, and religion, and learning, and civilization, are not, as was supposed, incompatible with democracy, but that they are in fact easiest attained and best secured by that form of government; and that, consequently, foreign nations need not fear to humanize their laws or liberalize their institutions by reason of any danger to be apprehended from the assertion of the democratic principle. We 1 need not look far to perceive the fruits of the solution of this great theorem. They are plainly visible in the spirit of British legislation, from the Reform Act down to the agitation now pending for the reform of the civil and military service, and more conspicuous still in the tone of the British mind as reflected in Parliamentary debates, books, and the press. We see them in France in the enlightened appreciation that able men have formed of their own republican essays, and in the convictions of the best minds in favor of republican institutions. We note them from time to time in Germany, in spite of the concurrence of circumstances adverse to democracy. We can even detect traces of them in the political condition of Spain, in the constitution of Piedmont, and in the

Without doubt, no single event, or range of events recorded in history, ever effected so much for the cause of human liberty and political science as the eighty years' successful working of American democratic institutions. Up to the close of the eighteenth century, the possibility of a stable republican government was generally doubted or denied by all Europeans who were understood to be the best judges of the matter. Dishonest views of the history of Greece, inaccurate information with regard to the history of Rome, superficial judgments on the republican essay in France, had led to a general conviction among historians, statesmen, and men of the world, that democracies were impracticable, and that changes which pointed in the direction of popular government were certain to be attended with great hazard. There were writers who maintained the opposite thesis; but they were almost invariably theorists, whose opinions had naturally but little weight with the classes practically concerned in, and acquainted with, the administration of government. If they were read, it was for amusement, and no one but them-reforms that have been projected and partially carselves ever dreamed of attempting to realize their schemes. Was it not written in history that every republic had succumbed in agony to the inherent vices of its nature, and that society had regained health only by the restoration of monarchy in one shape or other? It is hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs produced, directly or indirectly, by this political creed. Every abuse found in it an ally; every reform an invincible antagonist. It was not that people objected to republics merely. They lived in dread of every thing which looked as though it might, at any future time and under any possible circumstances, tend to liberalize governments or institutions: they shuddered at the It must not be imagined, however, that the oppovery name of democracy, which seemed synony-nents of popular government are reduced to silence. mous with revolution, civil war, bloodshed, and mil- One only needs to glance at the newspapers and itary despotism. Hence, for instance, in England, periodicals with which any single European steamin spite of a tolerably free Parliament, free press, er is freighted to satisfy one's self that the tone and free local institutions, that steady horror of re- of the adversaries of republicanism is as confident form which retained three-fourths of the kingdom in as ever. They have shifted their ground without political servitude till within the life-time of men abandoning the field. They do not tell us now, still young; which actually reversed the tide of na- as they did fifty or sixty years ago, that popular tional movement at the close of last century; which sovereignty is a delusion, and that republics are reared strong walls of defense around the privi- mere warming pans for military despots; but they leges of the church and the aristocracy, the abuses say that republican governments are hotbeds of of the law courts, the iniquity of the old feudal | corruption; that in them the profligacy of party

ried out in Russia during the two last reigns. Canada bears witness to them in a striking manner; and Mexico, now perhaps first entering upon the career of prosperity that is due to her advantages, shows their influence. Distant Australia, looming into empire, could not have been as free as it is but for the success of American Democracy.

In a word, the United States have now so thoroughly taught the world that it is safe to substitute popular choice for birth or royal favor in the selection of rulers, that no man of any political reputation would venture to assert at the present day that democracies are impossible.

Passing from the nominations to the actual

sert that it hardly ever happens that election returns are truly made in such a city as New York. They will refer to an election of quite recent date, at which a certain candidate polled more votes in such a ward than there were male residents; and they will show that in sharply contested elections it almost always happens that the number of votes polled is much larger than the proportion which the most extended experience of free elections would lead one to expect. They will not shrink from saying that these anomalies are due to frauds on the part of the inspectors of election, and they will quote largely, in support of this view, from the evidence taken in a recent famous trial. They may pass over the subject of bought and illegal votes; for though there would be no difficulty in showing that at every election many votes are bought, and many foreigners exercise the franchise illegally, this is a vice that is common to every electoral system that has ever been tried.

leaders militates as gravely against good govern- | ment as the selfishness of oligarchies or the tyran-elections, these European critics will fearlessly asny of despots; that their tendency is to produce a general laxity of principle, not only in political but in commercial matters, and a general recklessness of the rules which distinguish civilized from social life; that universal suffrage throws the control of the state into the hands of the least reputable men in the community; and, therefore, that a comparison of its merits with those of a restricted franchise, is simply a question whether the state shall be governed by the best or the worst class of citizens; that the extension of the elective principle to every administrative department involves greater mischiefs, by weakening the hands of the administration of justice, for instance, than it secures advantages; that the absence of a class raised above the necessity of striving for wealth by hereditary rank and means renders every one a money worshiper, and tends to debase the national mind and enervate the public spirit; finally, that the Executive, having always something to hope and something to fear from the masses, is naturally predisposed to court their favor at any cost, and to sacrifice the approbation of posterity for the applause of the moment.

But these critics will charge that the nomination and election of public servants appear almost pure when contrasted with the conduct of the persons elected. They will assert that this proposition holds equally good with regard to municipal, to state, and to federal legislative and executive officers. For instance-to employ their language it can be shown that an alderman of the city of New York exacted and received a sum of money for his vote on a private measure from the individual interested; that a wealthy contractor,

These are some of the objections which the organs of the monarchical and oligarchical interests in Europe are in the habit of urging against the form of government established in this country. The inference from them is, of course, the old one -that, with all their faults, the old established forms of government are still the best. It must not be supposed that their reasoning is un-high in favor with the members of the Common supported by evidence. They can prove every thing by reference to time, place, and circumstance.

Council, obtained from that body a lucrative contract, which he neither performed in the time stipIf you doubt, for instance-they will say that ulated nor consented to abandon, but retained all corruption pervades every political body and gov- his privileges, including the use of a valuable city ernment machine in the United States, from the property, for which he obtains but pays no rent; lowest to the highest, you shall be furnished with and that, on a motion to inquire into the matter, a proof of the fact. It shall be made plain to you, wonderful uniformity was manifested by a majorto begin with, that no man can be nominated for ity of the Council against all inquiry; that, quite office-whether municipal, state, or federal-with- recently, the same Council deliberately granted out a corrupt bargain with parties holding the to its members individually, and to their friends, nomination in their gift, in virtue of fraud and a monopoly of certain avenues in the city to build force. You shall be furnished with the name of a railways thereon; that aldermen, under feigned man whom it cost ten thousand dollars to be nom- names, have obtained from themselves and their inated for Congress from this State; of another colleagues various contracts and rights of great who paid fifteen hundred for the privilege of run- value, thereby defrauding the city; that Councilning on a certain ticket for alderman; of a third men have been seen to carry on the business of who spent several thousand dollars vainly in the emigrant-runners, and to use their official authorhope of being mayor; of a fourth who, in like ity to defy the police in their endeavor to rob immanner, invested the value of a comfortable dwell- migrants; that individuals possessing control over ing-house in a fruitless endeavor to serve his State the Council have been enabled to defeat the purin the capacity of governor. If one example of pose of the charter, by becoming lessees of city each of these forms of corruption appear insuffi- property at auction, but afterward refusing to execient, you shall have several. The evidence over-cute the lease therefor, thus obtaining all the beneflows. Other instances may be brought to your knowledge where the bargain between the nominees and the nominors was not a straightforward money operation, but a pledge sought and granted; where the nominor, in consideration of a promise of such and such offices in the gift of the nomince, or of such and such contracts to be awarded by him, covenanted to procure him the nomination. Another form: you shall be given the name of a man who, desiring to fill a lucrative municipal office, bargained with his two rivals that they should withdraw in consideration of a sum equal to thirty-three per cent. of the profits of the office, to be divided between them, and obtained the nomination and the office on these conditions.

fits without any of the responsibilities of the grant; that municipal officers have expended enormous sums, nominally for the discharge of their functions-which are left unperformed—and that, meanwhile, they have saved fortunes out of salaries of $1500 and $2000 a year; and that, though all these things are notorious, not one man has ever been punished by reason of them. It may be said, in like manner, that the balance of power in the State Assembly of New York has been held for two sessions-to go no farther back-by men who were ready to sell every vote; that they did sell, last session, every vote for which they could find a purchaser; that a score of them, clearly and plainly elected on a certain platform, and instructed by

their constituents to be the exponents of certain | against democracy on this point, the foreign critparty principles, on the very first occasion of im-ics will proceed, if required, to quote cases in supportance deliberately turned round and voted port of their other charges. They will say, for indirectly against that platform and against those stance, with Sir Archibald Alison, that no states principles; that more than one member of that but republics would have repudiated their debts, or House committed offenses during the session for even quibbled about the interest, thus setting an which they might have been sent to the State's example which banks, railway companies, and inprison, were accused of the same publicly, and dividuals have not been wanting to follow; that it dared not reply; that the party which was bold is hardly possible for citizens to obtain their rights enough to be their accuser had itself no higher in- in the civil courts in the United States in conseterests in view than those of a vast moneyed cor- quence of the tedious march of justice, and that the poration, and the distribution of canal contracts. most notorious criminals escape through defects in Ascending still higher in the legislative scale, it the penal system; that wealth is the key to social will be found that corruption intensifies in propor- distinction as well as political advancement, and tion to the dignity of the party corrupted. Thus that nine-tenths of the people of the United States United States officers are seen employing spies and think of nothing else but getting money; that the mouchards, who perjure themselves for so much a system of primary elections and nominating conweek, and imperil our foreign relations. Clerks in ventions does actually, and must, throw the real the Custom-house are openly in the pay of mer- franchise into the hands of the persons who choose chants-that is to say, they serve both buyer and to figure in these assemblies, who are not the leadseller, and receive hire from both. The amount ing or the best citizens of the republic; that asdue to the Treasury by defaulters would carry on saults upon Senators, the homicide of waiters, and the whole Government for several weeks. Cor- a general blood-and-murder tone in the highest ruption culminates at Washington. It is a pro-society of the Federal Capital, indicate any thing pensity elsewhere, there it is an art. Long expe- but progress in the social virtues. rience has developed and brought it to perfection. Members of Congress begin by sharp practice-to use a mild expression-on their mileage. They proceed to vote themselves a thousand dollars or two apiece in the shape of books, for which the people pay, and which they sell. They then pass to the fulfillment of their duty in reference to the passage of appropriations for mail service, etc., the extension of patent monopolies, and the grant of wild lands to railroad companies. It is in evidence that a sum of fifteen thousand dollars was recently expended by a single patentee in a fruitless attempt to obtain a renewal of his patent. Particulars of individual acts of corruption are not readily ascertained, and when ascertained, are not always safe to publish; but the general fact that money is freely and uniformly expended by all successful applicants for Congressional favor, or even Con-ers must decline; quite recently a remarkable gressional justice, is notorious. A list of the real stock-holders in the railway companies which have lately obtained grants of alternate sections, and also of the parties who are interested in the works of internal improvement which were passed by Democratic votes over the veto of the President, at the late session of Congress, would be instructive reading.

This is what the foreigners say, who argue that democracy is the mother of corruption. They add, that the quadrennial spectacle of the Presidential election is the climax, and would suffice alone to demoralize any nation. On all sides-say they one hears of nothing but the spoils. Men are proposed and nominated, apparently, for no other purpose but to provide a living for their partisans. This man is good, because he will distribute the spoils aright; that man will not do, because with him there will be no chance of spoil, as his arrangements are already made. Here and there the feeble voice of a philosopher or a greenhorn mutters something about principles, but his utterance is drowned in the hoarse croak of the practical men who clamor for spoils. It really seems as though the only issue in the contest which convulses the United States once every four years, is whether ABC or D E F shall fatten at the nation's cost. Happy nation! And happier A B C and D E F! Having, as they believe, made out their ease

Of course answers to many of these cavils will occur to our readers. The duel is an inconvenient institution, no doubt, and physical violence is degrading; but, after all, in times of great political excitement these eccentricities would be likely to occur in almost every country. Wait till the English have something worth fighting about-till the next French Revolution comes around, and see if they have not their duelists. As to the defects of the system of caucus or private party nominations, they exist beyond all doubt, and nothing too severe can be said of them; but this is a vice which is correcting itself. The operation has been evident in California; but even there the cost has been small, yet how thorough the work! In proportion to the rise of the power of the press, the power of mere party lead

instance of peremptory dictation by the press to a somewhat rebellious convention was witnessed. It is pretty clearly foreshadowed that ere long the newspapers will usurp the place of nominating conventions; and as they work in the light of day, and are dependent on the public for their daily bread, they may probably be trusted. The charge in reference to money-worship has the peculiarity of being as old as Hesiod; every nation that ever prospered has been accused of the same fault. Mr. Tennyson says in Maud that it is ruining England, and M. Ponsard's last plays are written to show that it is the ruling vice of the French. No doubt when art, and science, and letters have secured a better foothold in America, the United States will contain more men who do not always think about dollars; but in the mean time let us console ourselves with the reflection that there is a good deal of cant in the stereotyped outcry against moneygetting, that it is the only reliable stimulus of private enterprise, and the only certain guarantee of public prosperity. If the truth were known, poverty engenders more vice than affluence. As to the courts, perhaps it were better to confess judgment: we do not need foreign spectacles to sec their defects. Still we have no Chancery, and no Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce; nor are our judges afraid of deciding against the state. If we let a stray murderer escape, we imprison no Dorrits in the