which their chief possesses; and this universal propensity of the publick wishes will excite and reward the genius that discovers the way in which this may be done. If we know any thing of the true theory of liberty, we owe it to the wisdom, or, perhaps more correctly, to the experience of those nations whose publick sentiment was employed to check rather than to guide the government.

IT is, then, little to be expected, that American writers will add much to the common stock of political information.

It might have been sooner remarked, that the dramatick art has not afforded any opportunities for native writers. It is but lately that we have had theatres in our cities; and till our cities become large, like London and Paris, the progress of taste will be slow, and the rewards of excellence unworthy of the competitions of genius.

NOR will it be charged as a mark of our stupidity, that we have produced nothing in history. Our own is not yet worthy of a Livy; and to write that of any foreign nation where could an American author collect his materials and authorities? Few persons reflect, that all our universities would not suffice to supply them for such a work as Gibbon's.

THE reasons, why we yet boast nothing in the abstruse sciences, are of a different and more various nature. Much, perhaps all, that has been discovered in these is known to some of our literati. It does not appear, that Europe is now making any advances. But to make a wider diffusion of these sciences, and to enlarge their circle, would require the learned leisure, which a numerous class enjoy in Europe, but which cannot be enjoyed in America. If wealth is accumulated by commerce, it is again dissipated among heirs. Its transitory nature, no doubt, favours the progress of luxury more than the advancement of letters. It has among us no uses to found families, to sustain rank, to purchase power, or to pension genius. The objects on which it must be employed are all temporary, and have more concern with mere appetite or ostentation than with taste or talents. Our citizens have not been accustomed to look on rank or titles, on birth or office

as capable of the least rivalship with wealth, mere wealth, in pretensions to respect. Of course the single passion that engrosses us, the only avenue to consideration and importance in our society, is the accumulation of property: our inclinations cling to gold, and are bedded in it as deeply as that precious ore in the mine. Covered as our genius is in this mineral crust, is it strange that it does not sparkle? Pressed down to earth, and with the weight of mountains on our heads, is it surprising, that no sons of ether yet have spread their broad wings to the sky, like Jove's own eagle, to gaze undazzled at the sun, or to perch on the top of Olympus and partake the banquet of the gods.

Ar present the nature of our government inclines all men to seek popularity as the object next in point of value to wealth; but the acquisition of learning and the display of genius are not the ways to obtain it. Intellectual superiority is so far from conciliating confidence, that it is the very spirit of a democracy, as in France, to proscribe the aristocracy of talents. To be the favourite of an ignorant multitude, a man must descend to their level; he must desire what they desire, and detest all that they do not approve; he must yield to their prejudices, and substitute them for principles. Instead of enlightening their errours, he must adopt them; he must furnish the sophistry that will propagate and defend them.

SURELY we are not to look for genius among demagogues : the man who can descend so low, has seldom very far to descend. As experience evinces, that popularity, in other words, consideration and power, is to be procured by the meanest of mankind, the meanest in spirit and understanding, and in the worst of ways, it is obvious, that at present the excitement to genius is next to nothing. If we had a Pindar, he would be ashamed to celebrate our chief, and would be disgraced, if he did. But if he did not, his genius would not obtain his election for a selectman in a democratick town. It is party that bestows emolument, power, and consideration; and it is not excellence in the sciences that obtains the suffrages of party.

Bur the condition of the United States is changing. Luxury is sure to introduce want; and the great inequalities between the very rich and the very poor will be more conspicuous, and comprehend a more formidable host of the latter. The rabble of great cities is the standing army of ambition. Money will become its instrument, and vice its agent. Every step, and we have taken many, towards a more complete, unmixed democracy is an advance towards destruction: it is treading where the ground is treacherous and excavated for an explosion. Liberty has never yet lasted long in a democracy; nor has it ever ended in any thing better than despotism. With the change of our government, our manners and sentiments will change. As soon as our emperour has destroyed his rivals and established order in his army, he will desire to see splendour in his court, and to occupy his subjects with the cultivation of the sciences.

If this catastrophe of our publick liberty should be miraculously delayed or prevented, still we shall change. With the augmentation of wealth, there will be an increase of the numbers who may choose a literary leisure. Literary curiosity will become one of the new appetites of the nation; and as luxury advances, no appetite will be denied. After some ages we shall have many poor and a few rich, many grossly ignorant, a considerable number learned, and a few eminently learned. Nature, never prodigal of her gifts, will produce some men of genius, who will be admired and imitated.

REVIEW OF A PAMPHLET,

ENTITLED

PRESENT STATE OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION HISTORICALLY

FROM

ILLUSTRATED.-LONDON, 1807. pp. 182.

ROM the size of this pamphlet, and from its title page, it was natural to expect profound investigation and accurate and important results. The design of the work is announced with uncommon parade in an introduction of sixteen pages; but we do not hesitate to say, these are sixteen pages too much; for the object of the writer is sufficiently unfolded in what fol

lows.

THE work is divided into two parts. In the first part, he proposes to discuss the theory of the British constitution, and to examine how the theory differs from the practice. This part extends from the seventeenth to the ninety ninth page, inclusive. It is very verbose, and contains nothing new. After a long display of old historical facts, which he seldom applies, and which are not always applicable to his subject, he abruptly and unexpectedly concludes, that the security of the people. under the present British constitution is owing to the freedom of the press. We confess, we have been ready to prove the remarkable strength and stability of that constitution, and, of course, the security of the people, by its having stood so long in spite of the abuses of the press. For where the press is free, it will be abused.

WE ARE, HEART AND SOUL, FRIENDS TO THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. It is, however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe, that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It

strips virtue of her honours, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are every where. It is a precious pest and a necessary mischief, and THERE WOULD BE NO LIBERTY WITHOUT IT. We expected, that the author would have attempted profoundly to trace its useful operation; but he has not done it; and this rare task remains for some more acute inquirer into the obscure causes of its salutary influence.

In the second part he undertakes to prove, that this is the great safeguard of that constitution. For this purpose, he resorts again to history. But in the instances he adduces to shew the influence of a free press, he only demonstrates the power of publick opinion. The nation would have an opinion, if it had not a press; and that opinion would have weight and authority. Before the art of printing was known, bad ministers were crushed by publick odium. The favourites of Edward the second of England were as effectually overpowered by it, as if the press had been used. The freedom of the press cannot hinder its being venal. Had it then existed, those odious favourites would have used it to palliate their crimes. They would have bought the press; and, no doubt, they would have been patriots in type, till they were stripped of the means of corruption; and then again they would have been odious monsters. In our time this boasted luminary vents more smoke than light; so that the circumstances of transactions and the characters of men are to be clearly known only by waiting for the evidence of history in a future age, when it will be of very little comparative importance, whether the subject be understood or mistaken.

THOUGH nobody will deny the influence of publick opinion upon government, still it is a distinct question, what is the boasted salutary influence of the press? It might help the cause of truth and liberty; it might produce as well as gratify a thirst for inquiry. But who pretend to be the instructers of