own country, and, as far as they have effect, produce virulent national prejudices. This last

is the evil most especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully saps the foundation of his country's strength.

Republicans, above all other men, should be characterized by candour and purity of thinking. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come to all questions of national concern with calm unbiassed judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations with England, also, questions of a difficult and delicate character must occur more frequently than between us and any other nation; questions that affect the most acute and excitable feelings: and as in their discussion our government must be influenced by popular sentiment, we

cannot be too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent passion or prepossession.

Opening too, as we do, an asylum for the persecuted or unfortunate of every country, we should receive them all with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion.

Indeed, what have we to do with national prejudices? They are the inveterate diseases of old countries, that have crept into their habits of thinking in rude and ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hostility. But we have sprung into national existence in an enlightened and philosophic age, when the different parts of the habitable world, and the various branches of the human family, have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other; and we are unworthy of the advantages of our birth, if we do

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not shake off the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old world.

But above all, let us not be influenced by any

angry feelings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellent and amiable in the English character. We are a young people, and an imitative one, and take our models and exemplars from the older nations of Europe. There is no country so worthy of our study as England. The spirit of her constitution is most analogous to ours. The manners of her people-their intellectual activity-their freedom of opinion-their habits of thinking on all subjects that concern the dearest interests and most sacred charities of private life, are all most congenial to the American character; and, in fact, are most intrinsically excellent: for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep foundations of British prosperity are laid; and however the superstructure may be time-worn, or overrun by abuses, there must be something solid in the basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in the construction

of an edifice that so long has stood and even towered unshaken amidst the tempests of the world.

It should be the endeavour of our writers, therefore, discarding all feelings of irritation, and disdaining to be influenced by the illiberality of British authors, to speak of the nation dispassionately, and with determined candour. While they rebuke the indiscriminating bigotry with which some of their countrymen admire and imitate every thing English, merely because it is English, they should point out what is really worthy of approbation. We may thus place England before us as a perpetual volume of reference, wherein the sound deductions of ages of experience are recorded; and while we avoid the errors and absurdities which may have crept into the page, we may draw from thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, to strengthen and embellish our national character.