wholly incapable, from her model, of going with safety at all times even from port to port along our coast, and have not at our command throughout the whole country a single private steamer suitable for ocean navigation and for war, England has fifty-one steamers of war specially designed for ocean navigation, and the command, at any time, of not less, probably, than one hundred others of a superior class, owned by individuals, and of which the number, through the encouragement of the government, is constantly increasing. In view of this alarming disparity, a disparity that will require years to overcome, which the comparison between our readiness and that of England to avail ourselves of the use of steam power in maritime war, we think that there is room to fear our being left in regard to these things behind the most active and skilful of other nations, since we already occupy that station; and that the moment for the genius and enterprise of our fellow citizens to receive prompt encouragement and direction from government has already arrived. If it requires time to mature a plan having for its object a new system of accountability in the navy, congress can at least appreciate the material facts that we have a cruising force in commission of one ship of the line, five frigates, eleven sloops, and eight smaller vessels, including the steamer, and that we could probably, if not blockaded, send to sea in a year eleven line of battle ships, seventeen frigates, twenty-one sloops, and eighteen smaller vessels; while England has in commission twenty-nine line of battle ships, twenty-nine frigates, and one hundred and eighty smaller vessels, and that she could send to sea within a year, without greater efforts than we would have to make to fit out our inconsiderable fleet, one hundred and four line of battle ships, eighty-six frigates, one hundred and fifty smaller vessels, and a fleet of one hundred and fifty steamers, either belonging to her or at her disposal; the whole of this formidable fleet manned, moreover, by native seamen, while we must depend in a great measure on the mercenary service of foreigners. With these important facts palpably before us, has not congress sufficient data to justify it in at once placing the navy on the footing we have proposed; in maintaining a commissioned force of eight line of battle ships, eighteen frigates, and fifty smaller vessels, and in taking such measures as would enable us to put to sea within three years with a fleet of forty line of battle ships, forty frigates, thirty sloops, and thirty steam ers, half of this aggregate force being placed in a condition to be made available within a year; in providing for the rapid creation of native seamen, both by the navy and merchant service; and in extending all possible encouragement to the prosecution of steam navigation on the ocean by private enterprise. Accompanying the Presidential message which was so painfully wanting in recommending preparations for naval defence, we find a document from the representative of England, "formally demanding the immediate release" of a British subject under trial for infraction of our laws, on the ground that the British government avowed as its own act the violation of our territory, in the course of which one of our citizens had been murdered, and announcing the "serious consequences which must ensue from a rejection of this demand." We also find an able reply to this document from the secretary of state, in which, while a just and conciliatory answer is returned, the formal demand for the immediate release of the individual is not granted. In this reply the significant assurance is given, that "the American people are not distrustful of their ability to redress public wrongs by public means ;" and in reference to the murderous violation of our territory, avowed by England as its own act, that this republic" is jealous of its rights, and among others, and most especially, of the right of the absolute immunity of its territory against aggression from abroad; and these rights it is the duty and determination of this government fully and at all times to maintain." We could wish that our state of preparation for defence were better suited to give effect to this manly and becoming language. Though we are not of those who believe that a war with England is probable, yet with such grave causes of disagreement with her, the weakness of our means of defence is unwise and culpable. The rumor has already reached us that her Mediterranean fleet, after bringing to terms the Pacha of Egypt, through the destruction of his towns and the wholesale slaughter of his subjects, in a quarrel in which England had no just cause to interfere, is held in readiness to appear suddenly on our coasts in the event of the demand for the immediate release of McLeod not being complied with. That demand has not been complied with, and we are unprepared to meet the "serious consequences" with which we are menaced. If France has a taste for coups de main, the history of England, both early and recent, sufficiently proves that she cannot always resist the same temptation. An assault from her fleet of line of battle ships and steamers upon our own defenceless ports, without one note of warning, would not be more iniquitous than the capture of the Spanish treasure ships in time of peace, accompanied by such well-remembered circumstances of horror; or than the destruction of the Danish navy, also in time of peace, with the slaughter of several thousands of its brave defenders. We repeat, that we do not think a war with England probable; but we believe that immediate and ample preparation to meet it would be our surest guarantee against its occurrence; and such ample preparation we devoutly trust that congress before its adjournment will see fit to provide. ART. VI.-Ten Thousand a Year. A Novel. Originally published in Blackwood's Magazine. By the Author of "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician." Philadel phia: 1841. Carey & Hart. 5 vols. 12mo. (Unfinished.) WHEN Halleck told us, twenty years ago, that "Trumbull's Independence" and "Mr. Allen's lottery sign" should both "endure for ever," he pointed with his careless finger to a great truth, which, as one meditates, seems ever greater and truer. Ninety-nine hundredths of mankind like a bad picture just as well as a good one, provided only that they can see what the artist is aiming at, and that the object be something agreeable. The picture is a suggestion, not a thing the figures it conjures up in the mind are not its own, nor reflections of its own, but creatures of the excited imagination, which works upon its hints. The lottery sign now, without Halleck, "sine vate sacro," would have been forgotten; yet if on some pretence it could have been smuggled into the Rotunda, it would have got its share of admiration, a faith in its praises would have sprung up with repetition, and grown to an iminortality. Blackwood's Magazine is a sort of momentary Rotunda for a certain kind of stories; and narratives and pictures are subject to many of the same deficiencies, and require the aid of our imagination to be enjoyed to much the same extent. Taste may be said to be the power of supplying this aid; people of taste, therefore, relish works of imagination, because, entering as it were into the thoughts of the artist, they see in his work not what he effected, but the high ideal of his fancy, the beauties he endeavored to produce. The wretchedest daub of a painter that ever lived can see this in his own pictures; they recall the scene and circumstance of his daydreams to him, as a knot in a pocket-handkerchief brings back the train of thought which was passing when it was tied, though perhaps the picture, to all other eyes but its author's, may be equally unsuggestive. But let the picture once get a reputation, let the man who cannot see its merit be once well persuaded that there are people who can, and you shall see him go off into fudge ecstasies and tell a thousand falsehoods to get your good opinion of his taste, when perhaps he would be utterly incapable of telling you a single one to get your money. This is provoking, for it obscures judgment, and darkens instruction for a time as to the merits of any thing new. Time sets it all right again. The "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician" are far advanced on their journey to total oblivion, for which bourne "Ten Thousand a Year" is likely to set out as soon as all its baggage is packed up. Consider, after all, what a picture is at the very best and highest. Outline and color, one fixed expression, one instant's posture, one single point of view. But the variety of life, its warmth, its fulness, its energy, its action; the rich commentary that one instant supplies upon another; the comprehensiveness of many-sided view; all these are lostthey cannot be given, and it is the utmost stretch of the artist's power if he can hint at them. You take the hint, and create for yourself; you weep over his woes, if his scene be sad, with an inly self-congratulation; you praise him with compliments à ricochet-you have calculated their recoil upon yourself, "O, lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Pectore te, pia nympha, sensit." The suggestions of a narrative, like those of a picture, and especially in a work of fiction, must always be deficient in realizing points of view; must always lack what Rahel calls the "infinite presuppositions" of real life. All these are therefore to be supplied, or some substitutes for them, from the stores in the memory, or powers of imagination of the reader. In doing this probably is a great part of his pleasure, and if you do not shock or derange his ideas with any palpable falsehood or inconsistency, he will take an interest in almost any series of scenes through which you may choose to lead him. Some art of combination and scenic effect must no doubt be exerted, and some regard had to the previous knowledge of those to whom you address yourself, as one great point is to bring this into play by association. But only avoid gross faults, and you shall have gentle critics; display average talent, and you shall gain an average success; and this with the same certainty in novel writing, as in merchandise, or medicine, or law. We say not this satirically; on the contrary it is a blessing that our pleasures are not strictly limited by the number of works by great masters; and that when Shakspeare's fictions and Walter Scott's have ceased to amuse us, Tom, Dick, and Harry are all capable of doing it, and Mr. Bulwer and Mr. Warren are actively engaged in the task. But the man who reads Ten Thousand a Year with much pleasure may rely on it he furnishes a large portion of his own enjoyment from his own stores, partly from his ignorance, partly from his negligence, and partly from his knowledge and fancy. It is his ignorance which prevents his being shocked with certain solecisms in manners and customs, his negligence which skims lightly over inconsistencies in character and action; and it is by virtue of a little knowledge and a great deal of fancy, that he accepts as portraits of Lord Brougham, Sir James Scarlet, and other distinguished persons, some of the imaginary characters of this story. Leaner sketches, scantier traits, less exhibition of character in word and action, cannot well be imagined in written portraits. You take the author's word for it that Mr. Subtle was very subtle, and Mr. Quicksilver very showy and brilliant and unsound, and Mr. Crafty very cunning; but when you seek in their doings or sayings for any practical exemplification of these characteristics, nothing is to be found but failures. There is something so mawkish in this naming the characters from their parts, that a well-educated child of ten years old would be sick at it. It is the grossest and clumsiest of artifices, and resembles nothing so much as the old wood-cuts and coarse pictures in arras, where each figure is marked with a written name, and caricatured to corre |