of Rome. And though this be a question that a Classical scholar can hardly be supposed to ask, yet we will answer it, There was: every abomination which was practised in Sodom, was invested with a religious character in the Bacchanalian festivals; every impurity, which renders the sensual religion of the Hindoo disgusting, was canonized by the priests of Bacchus; all the loathsome and revolting enormities which rendered Canaan an eye-sore in the sight of Jehovah, and were the cause that his wrath was poured out upon them like water, and that his mandate went forth to the Israelites to blot them out utterly from the number of the nations, so that their own place might know them no more, were regarded as acceptable offerings to a god viler than Moloch, or Ashtaroth, and comparable only to the monsters which India worships.* We conclude our very imperfect notice of the Baccchanalians with an extract from the learned Editor of Aristophanes. "Wherever we trace it, (the Bacchic worship,) from the banks of the Ganges to those of the Hebrus, from the northern coasts of Thrace to the most southern parts of Greece, we find it a religion of dissension, blood, licentiousness and cruelty; a religion appealing forever to the passions, instead of the reason, and to the passions more particularly of the weaker sex, to whose hands its secret rites were, I believe, exclusively committed. Monarchs and magistrates trembled at its name, as well they might; for on the god's banners were borne the fates of such of them as had dared to oppose its progress; Eastern and Ethiopian princes-Orontes, Deriades, Gigon-defeated-slain; the Thracian Orpheus torn to pieces by female hands-Lycurgus rent asunder by horses-Pentheus sacrificed by a mother's hands. To the virtuous females of royal houses, Bacchic language was not less appalling; it told of the phrenzied daughters of the Argive Prœtus, of the Theban Agave, with her son's mangled head upon a pole; of the Mineïdes, forgetting the first laws of nature, and feasting on the flesh of their own children. In the world of intellectual as well as political greatness, its consequences, if less terrible in outer aspect, were not less mischievous in inner effect. The philosopher it stopped in his career, with a 'thus far, but no farther-you may speculate in moral and other the *Much as we may disapprove of the veiled obscenities of Gibbon's notes we dare not trust to the vernacular tongue a further description of the horrors of the Bacchanalian ceremonies. Quicquid apud bonos habetur profanum et inhonestum, Bacchantibus erat sacrum et religiosum. Ante oculos omnium sceleratissimorum, qui ad initia accedebant, muliebria et Priapeia, ingenti et enormi magnitudine publice apud sacra circumferebantur, et hæc haud raro exhibebantur etiam in actu coitus. Homines et fæminæ, pueri et puellæ, nudati cum nudatis, inter se promiscue miscebantur; et pulvinaria Numinis fiebant cubilia scortorum. ories as much as you please, so long as my institutions and my code of morals are left untouched, but meddle not with them;' while the dramatist, and more particularly the comic dramatist, was told, your very profession derives its charter from me; fulfil the terms of that charter, and I patronize, resist and I crush you,' etc. etc."-Mitchell's Ran. Aristoph. Introd. p. 93-4. We thus end our desultory, and somewhat laborious remarks upon a great variety of subjects connected with the work before us. And, with a hearty recommendation of this work to the learned world, for its undoubted merit, we would, as a parting word to the Professor himself, suggest, that many mistakes and omissions, perhaps unavoidable in the first edition of a heavy book like this, may be advantageously corrected in a second, which, we hope, an extensive sale of the present may soon call for. Dr. Anthon has our most cordial thanks for this contribution to Classical learning, and our anxious desire for the promised Archæological Dictionary. And if the charge of Charles Knight be well founded, as we trust it is not, we say, in the spirit of all kindness, "Go thy way, and sin no more." ART. VI. 1. Letter of JAMES HAMILTON to JOHN C. CALHOUN. London : 1842. 2. Letter of W. COST JOHNSON, October 1, 1842. The idea has been expressed, we think by Taylor, that a State is not always a government-that a State, properly consists of an organized society, whose perfection is in the security it affords. We would extend this thought, and say, that no State is properly organized, and no perfect security afforded, unless the strictest honor and good faith distinguish its transactions. By this we mean, that a sense of justice must adjust the balance of public authority. In this country and, we think, generally, in enlightened Europe, public sentiment makes the government, or at least regulates it. And if the mind of the people is not right, of course the administration of the public affairs will be wrong. With respect to pecuniary obligations, no principle should be violated by a State, as a collective body, which cannot be violated by men, as individuals. The rule of honesty is the same with him who buys his loaf of bread, as with the nation who negotiates millions. Under this test, we propose to examine the subject so forcibly alluded to in the letters at the head of this article; with the view of ascertaining whether the opinion entertained of the States of this Union by foreigners is well founded. It is unfortunate for the purity of American character abroad, that its standard has been estimated, either by the opinions of travellers, who have paid a flying visit to this country, with the determination to satirize its institutions; or by the conduct of a few Americans, whose follies, when present in Europe, have tainted the national name. Now it may be premised, that, with few exceptions, those who form the model of a nation's industry, patriotism or honor, are not those who roam abroad. The worthiest citizens of the republic stay at home; and in the silent pursuit of measures which advance individual interests, at the same time that they extend the prosperity of the State, and give a tone to its public measures, are unheard of abroad, and unknown among the evanescent throng who represent the name, but not the character or the feelings of their country. In just connection with the subject of this article, it may also be said, that political events are no guides by which to discover the true materials which compose the national character. When it is seen in Europe, that one professing in this country certain political views, succeeds over another of opposite opinions, this occurrence is not to be taken as proof, that the majority entertain the abstract sentiments of the successful candidate. In the first place the public estimation of a successful candidate is often controlled by circumstances which his opinions do not affect. The people's voice takes its tone very much from the habits, temperament and private character of the candidate seeking their approbation. Often it is a sectional feeling which gives impulse to what appears a political opinion: often the question is presented in such a light, as to connect it with subjects on which the populace is known to entertain particular prejudices; and this we believe to have been peculiarly the case, with the contest which lately occurred in the State of Mississippi, which resulted in the apparent recognition by her people of the doctrine of repudiation. Before proceeding it will be necessary to give a brief history of this doctrine of repudiation, and the events out of which it grew. "In 1838 the State of Mississippi chartered the Mississippi Union Bank. Its capital was $15,500,000, divided into shares of $100 each, to be 'raised by means of a loan to be obtained by the directors of the institution.'"* To facilitate the bank in its negotiations for so large a sum, the faith of the State was pledged "for the security of the capital and interest." The Governor was authorised to issue seventy-five hundred bonds for $2,000 each, bearing five per cent. interest, and redeemable in twelve, eighteen and twenty years, and to deliver them, from time to time, in amounts proportioned to the sums subscribed, and secured, to the satisfaction of the directors, as required by the charter.§ The bonds were made transferable by the endorsement of the President and Cashier of the Bank, to the order of any person whomsoever, or to the bearer, and the endorsement was to fix the place where the principal and interest should be paid, but the Bank was to pay the principal and interest of the bonds as they severally fell due. An act supplementary to the charter, passed before the Bank commenced operations, prescribed that two and one half per cent. on the subscriptions should be immediately paid. The balance was to be secured by mortgages on real estate,** and the bank to commence business as soon as $500,000 were subscribed and paid in on the capital.†† As soon, however, as the state bonds were sold, and the proceeds of the sale realized by the institution, the directors were required to refund to the subscribers, within ninety days, the amount paid by them in cash on their subscriptions, with five per cent interest.‡‡ The supplement directed the Governor to subscribe, in the name of the State, for fifty thousand shares, to be paid for out of the proceeds of the State bonds.§§ The government of the institution was authorized to appoint three commissioners to sell the bonds in "any market within the United States, or in any foreign market," and under any rules and regulations "not inconsistent with the provisions of the charter." Upon the power of sale there were but * Charter, sec. 1. Il Ibid, sec. 7. #Ibid, sec. 44. + Ibid, sec. 5. + Ibid, sec. 5. § Ibid, sec. 30. ** Charter, sec. 8. tt Ibid, sec.13. two restrictions, viz: that the bonds should not be sold under their par value," and that the commissioners should not "accept any commission or agency from any other banking or rail-road company, for the disposal of any bonds for the raising of money, or act as agents for the procuring of loans upon the pledge of real estate for the benefit of any other corporation.' By the charter the Bank was empowered to "receive and possess all kinds of property, either moveable or immovable, and to sell, alienate, demise and dispose of the same; to loan-to negotiate-to take mortgages and pledges, and to discount on such terms and securities as they should judge proper." Seven offices of discount and deposit were established in different locations with an aggregate capital of $10,500,000, the directors of which were to appropriate two-thirds of the capital of each office to loan on mortgages, and one-third to loan on promissory notes and bills of exchange. On the day the books were opened at Jackson, the capital of the State, Governor McNutt subscribed for 50,000 shares, and between the fifth and ninth days of June, 1838, executed and delivered to the Bank twenty-five hundred bonds, payable in twelve and twenty years from the fifth of February preceding. Soon after the receipt of the bonds, the directors appointed three commissioners to effect their sale. The commissioners received a sealed power of attorney, which contained a clause prohibiting them from selling the bonds "for less than their par value in current money of the United States." Upon the 18th of August, 1838, the commissioners, in the name of the Union Bank, contracted with Nicholas Biddle for the sale to him individually, of the whole amount of the State scrip then issued. The contract made the bonds payable at the agency of the Bank of the United States, in London, in sterling money of Great Britain, at the rate of four shillings and six-pence to the dollar, with interest payable semi-annually, at the same place and rate; Mr. Biddle on his part, agreeing to pay the commissioners $5,000,000, lawful money of the United States, in five equal installments of one million each, on the first day of November, 1838, and on the first days of January, March, May and July, 1839. The Bank of the United States guarantied the faithful per |