sively grounded on American capital; if the suggestions that we are the mere agents of foreigners are ungenerous insults, contrived as apologies for injuries; if frauds in relation to foreign trusts are not more frequent in this country than in Great Britain; and if no government is able wholly to prevent them; then our conclusion in the present, as in all other cases, ought to be deduced from general facts, and not from particular exceptions. This conclusion is, that the American commerce is one of the great links which connect those interests of civilized nations, which wars ought not to disturb; that to break this link will be to destroy all commerce; and, therefore, that a serious misunderstanding with Great Britain would prove fatal to the most important interests of both countries.

This view of the subject, while it excites our anxiety, furnishes also a resource for our hopes. We wish only for justice; and believing that a commercial nation, which disregards justice, thereby undermines the citadel of her power, we rely on the effect of mutual interests and wishes in promoting a cordial explanation and fair adjustment of every cause of misunderstanding: in particular, we rely on the government of our country, that our rights will not be abandoned, and that no argument in favour of a usurpation will ever be derived from our acquiescence.

If our personal interests and local attachments have not greatly misdirected our opinions, the defenceless situation of the port of New York ought to excite the anxious solicitude of every friend of his country. Our river is the only commercial avenue to a fertile and populous country, which is rapidly rising into importance. It is here that one third of the revenue of the union is collected; and this proportion is understood to be relatively increasing. But while we are grateful for these distinguished advantages of nature, our satisfaction is diminished by reflect

ing on their insecurity; for in proportion as the resources of the country accumulate to this point, is the hazard, that they may present a temptation to rapacity, and become the prize of violence. Without recurring to the experience of past times for proofs that no nation can long maintain an extensive commerce, without well defended sea ports, and an efficient military marine, we are admonished by the new and portentous aspect of Europe, and the alarming prevalence of piracy in the West Indies, that energetic measures of defence have become indispensably necessary.

We presume not to express any opinion respecting the degree of force, of which the permanent navy ought to consist; and being sensible that delays must attend the construction of suitable defences for our port, we shall rest satisfied when we perceive that these measures are commenced, in a manner and upon a scale which will assure to us an efficient completion.

Such, however, is the present organized force of the United States, that we should consider it inconsis tent with the honour, interests, or security of our country, to parley with the pirates of the West Indies, whose conduct being inconsistent with any known rules of lawful warfare, cannot have been authorized by any civilized nation towards another nation, in a state of peace. Our vessels, while pursuing a lawful trade, have been piratically seized, their cargoes have been forcibly taken away and distributed, without even the form of a trial; the vessels in many instances sunk and destroyed, and the crews strip. ped of all their property: all these outrages have been exercised upon innocent and defenceless men, aggravated by unprecedented circumstances of insult, oppression, and barbarity. Some of these violences have been committed on vessels which were captured within sight of our harbours; and the great scene of these unparalleled enormities is the island of Cuba, which commands

But it is not on account of our pecuniary losses alone that we complain. The constancy and valour of the seamen of the United States are justly themes of patriotic exul tation. From their connection with us, we consider their cause as our cause, their rights as our rights, and their interests as our interests; our feelings are indignant at the recital of their wrongs; and we request, in addition to the protection of a naval force, that, at least in the American seas, our brave countrymen may be permitted to display their energy in their own defence.

Your memorialists conclude with remarking, that they deem the present situation of public affairs to be peculiarly critical and perilous, and such as requires all the prudence, the wisdom, and energy of government, supported by the co-operation of all good citizens. By mutual exertions, under the benign influence of Providence upon this hitherto favoured nation, we hope the clouds that threaten to obscure its prosperity may be dispelled; and we pledge our united support in favour of all measures adopted to vindicate and secure the just rights of our country.

Signed by the unanimous order, and on behalf of a general meeting of the merchants of the city of New York, convened on the 26th December, 1805.

JOHN BROOME, Chairman.

For the Literary Magazine.

MEMORIAL OF THE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK TO CONGRESS, ON THE SUBJECT OF DEFENCE.

The Memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City

of New York, most respectfully representeth:

THAT the peculiarly defenceless situation of this city has for a long time occasioned great anxiety among its inhabitants, and that the present critical posture of national affairs has greatly increased this solicitude.

of

It is well known that we can be approached by hostile vessels in two ways: that frigates of force can proceed through the Sound, totally uninterrupted by any fortifications; that ships of the line can, by way Sandy Hook, with a favourable wind, arrive here in a few hours from the ocean, and that there is nothing to oppose their progress but a few works on Governor's and Ellis's islands, which are totally inadequate to repel the attacks or prevent the advances of an enemy.

It is equally well known, that this city, in relation to the internal and external commerce and the revenues of the country, is very important to the union; and that it is in a situation the most defenceless of any, must be universally acknowledged.

At the beginning of the revolutionary war, this place was among the first attacked by the enemy; and it is highly probable that, on the commencement of hostilities with a maritime power, the first blow will be aimed at it. Invited by its proximity to the ocean, by its unprotected situation, by its extensive commerce and great wealth, and by the distressing consequences which would result to the revenues and general prosperity of the country, an enemy would have every inducement to make it the earliest and principal object of attack.

Without intending to draw invidious comparisons between this and the other commercial cities of the union, and without presuming to question, in the remotest degree, the sincere disposition of congress to extend the protecting arm of the national government to us, in common with the other citizens of the United States, we have been emboldened by our confidence in your

honourable body, and have been induced by the threatening aspect of our foreign relations, and by our regard for the welfare of this city and its inhabitants, to appeal, in the most earnest manner, to the constitutional guardians of the common defence and general welfare, and most respectfully to pray, that prompt and efficient measures may be taken for putting this city and port in an adequate state of defence. DE WITT CLINTON, Mayor.

For the Literary Magazine. WHO IS THE BEST WRITER ?

EVERY superior writer addicts himself to some peculiar manner. Long loved, long pursued, and, at length, obtained, this enamoured object of his passion excludes, by its constancy, every deviation from the established excellence; to dissimilar beauty he often becomes insensible, and he bestows comparative merit on any performance, from its proximity to, or distance from, his favourite manner. Without imputing to them degrading passions, we may thus account for the opposite and erroneous opinions of great men, on their different labours. It is not probable that Milton envied the genius of Dryden, when he contemptuously called him a rhymer; but it is more evident, that Milton's notions of poetry were not congenial to the manner of Dryden. The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer; the classical Boileau the rough sublimity of Crebillon; the forcible Corneille the tender Racine; the refined Marivaux the familiar Moliere; the artificial Gray the simple Shenstone; and the plain and unadorned Montaigne the rich and eloquent Cicero. Each, enslaved to his peculiar manner, was incapable of conceiving the diversities of beauty, but attached himself to one single and darling portion.

Whenever an uncommon species of composition appears, which displays a new mode of excellence, and places a new model in the school of taste, the slowest and the last to chaunt their pæans to him will be writers themselves. To envy this cannot always be imputed, but is generally derived from a want of the proper taste for that manner, which taste can only be gradually formed. One reason, perhaps, why writers sometimes are inimical to a foreign excellence, may be attributed to the jealousy of trade, because every new manner is a kind of hostility against those already established. But some men are not always influenced by this prejudice, and yet are equally inimical to the new production.

There are two poets, who, it cannot be denied, have created an original manner, and, at their first appearance in public, met a similar fate among critics. When Gray's Odes were published, they delighted two men of poetical taste, Warburton and Garrick, while they were ridiculed by two men of poetical genius, Colman and Lloyd. At a still later period, Churchill animadverted with severity on the poetry of Gray; and Goldsmith and Johnson were as inimical to that manner as Churchill himself, though by no means admirers of the genius of Churchill. That manner has now become fixed, and is justly valued by men of taste. In neither of these instances can the critics be justly censured; but it may confirm the judicious observation of Johnson, that, after all the refinements of criticism, the final decision must be left to common readers, unperverted by literary prejudices.

The same error frequently induces men, when they contrast their labours with others, to consider themselves as superior, and of course to be stigmatized with the most unreasonable vanity. Goldsmith, for example, might have contrasted his powers with those of Johnson, and, without any perversion of intellect, or inflation of vanity, might consider himself as not

inferior to his more celebrated and learned rival.

Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own genius, which, like a native stream, flowed from a natural source, to the elaborate powers of Johnson, which, in some respect, may be compared to those artificial waters which throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into marble basons. He might have considered that he had embellished philosophy with poetical elegance, and have preferred the paintings of his descriptions to the terse versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He might have been more pleased with the faithful representations of English manners in his Vicar of Wakefield, than with the borrowed grandeur and the exotic fancy of the oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, what many excellent critics have believed, that in this age comedy requires more genius than tragedy, and, with his audience, he might have infinitely more esteemed his own original humour, than Johnson's rhetorical declamation. He might have thought that with inferior literature he displayed superior genius, and, with less profundity, more gaiety.

He

might have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasing compositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and that ostentatious eloquence which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson. No one might be more sensible than himself that he, according to the happy expression of Johnson, when his rival was in the grave, "tetigit et ornavit." Goldsmith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might have concluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an inferior writer to Johnson; all this not having been considered, he has come down to posterity as the vainest and the most jealous of writers; he whose dispositions were the most inoffensive, whose benevolence was the most extensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been concealed by its artlessness, and passed over in the sarcasms and sneers of a

VOL. V. NO. XXIX.

more eloquent rival, and his submissive partisans. This character of Goldsmith may explain that species of critical comparison, which one great writer makes of his manner with that of a rival.

We can hardly censure men for this attachment to their favourite excellence. Who but an artist (I use the word in a large and conspicuous sense, in which the votaries of the pen, pencil, and chisel are included) can value the ceaseless inquietudes of arduous perfection; can trace the remote possibilities combined in a close union; the happy arrangement and the striking variation? He not only is affected by the performance like the man of taste, but is influenced by a peculiar sensation, for, while he contemplates the apparent beauties, he often traces in his own mind those invisible corrections, by which the final beauty was accomplished; it is the practical hand alone that is versed in, and the eye of genius alone that can discriminate many daring felicities, many concealments of art, and many difficulties. overcome. Hence, it is observed, that artists do not always prefer those effects which influence an unprejudiced and uncorrupted taste; but rather those refinements which form the secret exultation of art; and the minuter excellences which consist in the mechanical, as a certain critic terms it, are often preferred to those more elevated ones which arise from the ideal. It is this indulgence for refinement which at length terminates in the corruption of art.

But a disposition for selecting one branch of art in preference to another, is perhaps the only road to its summit. We must not, therefore, calumniate artists if they neglect the various schools of beauty. It is not difficult for a man of taste, whose hand reposes while his head ever thinks; whose creative powers are at rest, but whose perceptive faculties are habitually exerted; and who, in the tranquillity of his closet, has only to gaze at pictures, but not to blend colours, and 3

to meditate on poems, but not to compose verses; it is not difficult for this elegant idler to form the most various views of beauty in art; to trace with the same lively gratification its diversities, and to feel no displeasure from the most incongruous manners. Such a one may be supposed to hover with ecstasy round the ideal of a Raphael, and a Pope, or to mix with the grotesque caricatures of a Hogarth or a Butler. This versatility of taste is generally denied to the man of genius; and while men of taste are often unanimous in their opinions, we shall frequently observe that the greatest artists give the most discordant decisions. Johnson said that his notions on manuscripts proved generally erroneous; and this circumstance has happened to many eminent writers.

It would therefore seem that the most unfit person to decide on a performance is an artist himself; and that the genuine merits of a work are candidly adjusted and correctly estimated by men of taste, and rarely by men of genius; and this opinion I hold, though with much diffidence, in opposition to one who was both artist and critic. Dr. Burney, in his Life of Metastasio, says, "It is possible for a man of learning, study, and natural acumen, to be a good critic on the works of others, without genius for producing original works themselves, similar to those which they were able to censure as was the case with Longinus, Bentley, Bossu, and others; yet still, cæteris paribus, the opinion of practical poets and practical artists of every kind will have more weight in the scale of criticism than those of mere theorists."

For the Literary Magazine.

REMARKS ON STYLE.

P.

THE history of English style, since the birth of its first elegance,

may, perhaps, be traced in the following concise manner.

When national literature has attained a certain point, there arises a simple elegance of style, which, in its further progress, displays richer ornaments, and often becomes refined to a vicious excess. It may be traced through four stages or schools.

The first writers who attempt elegance, and polish the asperities of language, excel in natural sweetness and amiable simplicity. But the style is not yet disciplined, for it still retains many colloquial terms, and many negligent expressions, which either were not such in the writer's day, or his ear, not yet accustomed to uniform elegance, received no pain from familiar and unstudied expressions. In time, these defects became visible; yet, as these writers are placed among the first classics of their nation, they are regarded with veneration, and often pointed out as models to young writers. Among such authors we may place Tillotson, Swift, and Addison.

As

The second school introduces a more diffuse and verbose manner: these writers solicit the ear by a numerous prose, and expand their ideas on a glittering surface. elegance can only be obtained by diffusion, its concomitant is feebleness, and an elegant writer enervates his sentiments. Beauty is inconsistent with force. Elevated emotions these writers rarely awaken, but a graceful manner in composition is their peculiar charm. Their genius may be supposed to be somewhat impaired by the excursions of their predecessors, and they attempt to supply, by the charms of amenity, and a copious diffusion of beautiful expression, the demand for novelty, as well as that taste for elegance of diction, which the public now possess. Among these pleasing writers may be ranked sir William Temple, Usher, Melmoth, and many others.

Satiated with nerveless beauty and protracted periods, a third