one case, government is actually the associated nation, in the other, only the ligament which affects the association; that in England the state is to the people what the body is to the soul, the one instantaneously acting the volitions of the other, and both so intimate in their junction that a political Hobbist might presume them identical: that in America the government is to the people what the feet are to the rest of the body, merely carrying the person along, while the head and hands act distinctly. This severance of the institutions of the country from the politics of the country is assuredly most wise for the interests of the latter; for it, together with the slightness of the political bond, which is not a hard knot, but a system of compensating slip-knots, well nigh renders 'revolution' a word of none effect. In England, if you prostrate the universities, the church, or the gentry, you revolutionise the government; here, you may lay every thing low, and that abstract thing, the government, lives on. But the evil is on the other side. Is there not danger that public impulse, wanting appointed channels, may for ever 'lose the name of action,'-that the soul, unvested in a body, may be an airy nothing.'

"There is no moral phrenology, Mr. Wilson," said Tyler, "by which to read in the forehead of the infant people, the career of the adult nation. All that we can do is to note the advantages and the means, and trust to the innate virtue of humanity, that the means will be adopted and the advantages improved. For my part, though no patriot, and having neither feeling nor profit at stake, I am interested as a philosopher in the game that is playing. I assemble around me a family of bright-eyed hopes, and when fortune seems to frown, I say calmly with the knight in the enchanted cavern of Montesinos, 'Patience! and shuffle the cards.'"

“As to the stability of the government,” said I, “ I have no fears; for what has it to fall from? The only cause which ever occurred to me as likely to interfere fatally with the administration of power, and disarrange permanently the organisation of the system, is the want of sinecures and rewards, and offices of dignity. When a general or an admiral returns victorious in England, the nation's obligations are expressed by a pension or a title,

offices of recompense and honour; here there exists no mode of displaying gratitude but by the bestowal of an office of trust. This notion of regarding a public office of trust as a reward to the occupant is so false as to be almost ludicrous; and if there be any fatal error in the American policy it lies at that point; and the nation will perish by its own disinterestedness. Over the water 'heroes' are disposed of in another way, and those whose very eminence in war is merely proof of their incompetency as statesmen, are not allowed to fire the ship within, by way of reward for having saved it from the external danger of the waves."

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Yet, on the other hand," said Tyler, "this popular predisposition in favour of military men may be of high service by way of antagonist tendency in a system of compensation of evil. For the master danger in our state seems to me to be of another complexion. The fear of what is called a military despotism,' you as well as I know to be one of those idle weeds which has been transported from the old world, and which has no possible existence in this country. The only probable source of monarchical power,-and that is a very probable one,is in the effect of interested and diplomatic arrangement, in the organisation of party. The elements of pacific despotism are now more numerous and combinable in America than they have ever before been in any country. The possibility of despotism is always in proportion to the existing means and facilities of abstract influence.. No means of influence is so great as the press. There are offices enough in the disposal of government to buy the whole press; and a party combined by the possession of office and its expectation, may quietly hold predominence by a bare majority, and perpetuate itself. Here, then, is the advantage of 'heroes,' that when matters are in this condition, one of them may be brought forward on the other side, and by force of enthusiasm, beat down calculation; and thus, as occasion shall demand, the tiger may be brought against the crocodile, and the two monsters may, Munchausen-wise, devour one another."

"But," said Mr. Wilson, "these incessant conflicts and struggles will surely wrack the system to pieces; there is nothing can stand such knocking about."

"Our government,” replied Mr. Tyler, "is framed for the very purpose of being kicked about; and, like the Giaour in Vathek, its being occasionally used as a football, does not prevent its resuming at any time its original character of erectness. It is like a ship-compass, hung for sea service: wherever it may be pitched it never loses its centre of gravity. It may however be doubted whether our system, admitting its continuance, is likely to advance the character of community over which it presides in the same degree with other forms of government. The great defect in our nation lies in the want of an aristocracy. Without it no people can make certain progress in refinement and elevation of character. An aristocracy represents the past; it treasures up the experience and improvements of ages: it furnishes a touchstone to the hasty changes of the present, and reminds men of the judgments of memory, and of their connexion with posterity. But we must wait for time to establish those advantages which time only produce. The fewness of the benefits held out by the American experiment strikes me as a most favourable indication of the success of the undertaking. It began with no such high auguries as have presided over the commencements of other commonwealths; its aim was vastly lower,-its inception vastly more restrained; and the omen of moderation has attended the birth of no other republic. The anticipated advantages which led to it were not conceived in the teeming brain of a poet; but coldly calculated in a ledger-book. It was a hard, dry, prosaic scheme,-an arithmetical revolution; resting not on a motto from Plato, but on a small refractory balance of dollars and cents on the 'debtor' side of a Quaker's account-book. It was calmly suggested by the cool-hearted Washington, and deliberately planned by the dry-headed Franklin,—a man whose mind was a cyphering machine, by which he could in an instant calculate the par value of an idea,—who was a walking square and compass, and might almost be said to have thought in figures. So far forth, our republic has, for practical purposes, the advantage over all which have gone before it. Its local superiority is also great; it has no one vast city upon which all depends; and its capital is a place which never can be large. This protects the

political structure from the danger of perishing in municipal broils. Rome was the Roman Empire, and the want of Panem et Circences' in the metropolis might destroy the government. This state of things among us, though favourable to the exercise of a despotic spirit by our rulers, is a happy circumstance for our tranquillity, and the day of the removal of our seat of government to a populous city will be the last day of our union. The extent of our country, which creates a dispersion of passion and an equilibrium of divellants, is also fortunate. Local interests are large enough to absorb the floating factiousness of the people, and prevent its settling on any one vital question. Even if the topic of the union ever becomes paramount, and the four great sections of the country all pull asunder, there are always three against any one so that the union is like a pillar which stands erect by being drawn equally towards the four quarters of the compass. The progressive extension of the States towards the south-west is to be regarded with especial complacency: for that part being southern by climate, society and soil, and western by its trade along the river, becomes the clasp of those two great chains; and our whole circle will be a double arch, with one key-stone at New York and the other at New Orleans. ark of our safety is the spirit of trade. conservative or destructive element in has never yet been fully estimated. by far the most potent of all the influences now in operation; and it alone is revolutionising Europe. To us, however, it is an unalloyed blessing; for it is daily wearing away those local prejudices and that stiff regard to principle which was most likely to pull our house over our ears. You observe that its tendency is to break down passion and substitute a calculation of interest as the mainspring of action. A rail-road from Charleston to Philadelphia would knock nullification in the head for ever. America is by far the most interesting spot in the world to a philosopher. Here is a people growing up as free as the oak on the summit of a mountain; with no control,- -no precedent,-no history,-no past. It is a splendid sight, and I am glad that I live to behold it. We shall see what man will become when

But the great Commerce as a modern states, It strikes me as

there is nothing within him but a heart of oak,-nothing around him but the open race-ground,-nothing above him but the God of Heaven:

All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, and eagle-eyed, true-hearted.
See if we cannot beat the angels yet!"

In a few minutes Mr. Tyler withdrew and I remained alone with Emily and her father.

"A person of bold opinions," said Mr. Wilson.

"A very agreeable person!" said his daughter.

A strange thing is the vocabulary of woman! incom. municable and often unimaginable are the notions which they attach to words! I have long since learned that where they are concerned, a thing can never be understood with certainty from a word, and a word not often be understood by inference from the thing. But of all the mystical words which a woman uses, the most mysterious is the word "agreeable." They apply it alike to the grave and the gay, the pious and the profane, to the rattling wit who is never silent, and to the dull dunce whose existence is only testified by an occasional nod. What the lady, in the present case, could have meant by saying that a person who had discoursed for half an hour upon politics, was agreeable, it might be difficult to ascertain with precision. Probably the speaker's ardent sympathy in a taste for flowers had gratified the feelings of his auditor, to which his subsequent grave conversation had added an impression of respect, and from the two conjoined sprang that indefinite liking, which was embodied in this cabalistic word " agreeable."

I turned to Mr. Wilson to inquire who Mr. Tyler was. "I know nothing of his history," he replied. "I have met him occasionally in society, but scarcely ever conversed with him before. He is a student, I believe, more than any thing else." There was a calm resolution in his eye, and a rich confidence in his flexible lip, which indicated to me, one who had gazed upon scenes more brilliant and exciting, than the cold, still page of the learned tome.