ness to disparage present times, and this proneness is, therefore, more in alliance with the fear of human deterioration. Experiments, generally very partial, having failed, these abettors, who had staked every hope of such improvement on their issue, in their mortification have joined in the clamour that all this hope was vain. The idle fables of perfectibility and optimism have thrown this opinion, with which they have no more connection than a horoscope with astronomy, into unmerited disgrace. The unfounded fear that such a course covertly implies political convulsion and disorganization, has deterred many from invoking it. A nice observation is wanting also for the perception of the progress to which we refer an observation of certain tendencies profound and noiseless. To such observations the majority of men are neither competent nor inclined.

It must be confessed that some of the grounds, on which this expectation has been raised, are not the most happy. One author, before referred to, supposes that we must proceed, because of the lassitude and ennui to which our nature is disposed. He imagines that this must render us thoughtful, in order to contrive against such an unpleasant mood. Some have imagined that war is a guarantee for this melioration,-for as engineering and fortification are conducted on scientific principles, it is impossible for modern nations to relapse, and almost certain that war will draw forth new inventions. De Staël, with her beautiful eloquence, supposes the improvement to consist in the mass of our ideas, to which every age will now add, by means and in a quantity unknown to the former. I am inclined to anticipate this moral onset, rather on the present state of the world, though persuaded that the tendency belongs to the very mind of man. Nothing of discovery, or, which is the same thing, no particle of truth, henceforth can be lost. A simple mechanical contrivance gives an immortality to science, literature, and, in a great degree, to art.-Never were civil constitutions so favourable to the development and cultivation of genius in every department of enquiry and knowledge.-Nations begin to learn that peace is consistent with political greatness and influence. -The people at large are becoming interested in philosophic

experiments as the foundations of a daily subsistence.— Mind is awake, no more to be rocked into slumbers or amused by dreams: but, intent on the day-star of its hope, bounds along with untiring vigour. The fearless search for truth it discovers is the surest sign of contrition for past mistake, and the brightest augury of future renovation. I will here quote from an author of the present age a splendid passage in illustration,-a passage which no author but one of the present age could have written :-"I persuade myself that the life and faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot be employed more rationally or laudably than in the search of knowledge and especially of that sort which relates to our duty and conduces to our happiness. In these enquiries, therefore, wherever I perceive any glimmering of truth before me, I readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its source, without any reserve or caution of pushing the discovery too far, or opening too great a glare of it to the public. I look upon the discovery of any thing which is true, as a valuable acquisition to society which cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the good effect of any other truth whatsoever; for they all partake of one common essence, and necessarily coincide with each other; and like the drops of rain, which fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream and strengthen the general current."

and entailed it upon this. Nothing can henceforth be indissoluble but restless. And though we might

The present form and weight of public opinion constitute a chief ground of auspicious hope concerning the species. It is an inheritance of noble thoughts and well-proved principles, which has become our own. It has gathered up the experience of truth and good from all ages, Nothing can henceforth fade away. inert. The elements are not only They are in constant flux and strife. seek for them a more settled equilibrium and repose, yet, while so many important propositions are waiting for confirmation or disproof, while so many transcendent questions are claiming to be worked out to their just solution, while even the foundations

Middleton's Life of Cicero.

of so many hopes require to be laid, we must not murmur, though it is our lot to live amidst the stir and conflict of such an agitation. The wave has rolled long and like an ocean-swell; our bark shivers upon its crest. The turmoil of the fight precludes our knowing the key of the position and the plan of the battle; we only feel the shock. But the billow throbs with its proper impulse. The combat sweeps in its proper course.

Revolution can never take place in the governments of the world, without a great aptness in public sentiment for it. Seldom, however, is a people so ripe and so prepared, that such a change shall not cost a struggle. But as seldom does such change not repay it. The causes must be deep and general: men are commonly long injured,-worn out with wrong,-ere they are goaded to this redress. Our own was but the proscription of a hated dynasty, and the dash of a pen achieved it. That of America, be its provocation great or small, was the requirement of self-rule, by a vast colony which was old enough for a patriotism, and strong enough for a defiance. Never had country a juster ground for this species of vindication than France. There was not a great heart but beat in sympathy with it. Had it been earlier, its righteousness would have been clearer still. It should have fallen upon the rampant vice of tyranny, and not upon its feebleness. The worst, by the delay, were spared. And then it was acted by the few, and only imitated by the multitude. There was no standard morality, no restraining principle. It was a terrible recoil of passion. It was a judgment for martyred blood. The original quarrel was forgotten, and assassins seized on it as an occasion for massacre and booty. Yet when this age has passed, and its wars are forgotten, and its prejudices are allayed,—even that tempest and whirlwind shall be confessed to have ventilated the political atmosphere of the earth, and to have dissipated many a putrid pest which they found hanging there!

That a crisis now solemnly pauses over the human family, that the chronicle of our world has now reached a surpassing interest, few will deny. The spirit of this age, growing long and maturing fast, struggles for expression. It teems, it tra

vails, with glorious presages. What are its signs? It is the spirit of vindication. Man feels that he has been the subject of atrocious wrong. He has been crushed to the dust. His claims have all been mocked and spurned. He but asserts himself, but that assertion is a business of no mean import, and must prove one of mighty earnest. It is the spirit of knowledge. The soul feels that, to be without it, is not good. As the eye covets light, and even the flower of the cavern turns towards it, man disdains the ignorance which has been forced upon him, and, "more than they who wait for the morning," invokes the irradiation which can change mental darkness into day. It is the spirit of independence. The postulates of intellectual exaction are refused. The watchwords of general opinion are slighted. Proof is craved. Test is applied. Theory is sifted. It is the spirit of liberty. The quenchless passion which found an inbeing in the bosom of the enlightened and the virtuous few of old, has now awakened an all but universal sympathy. Even the slave breaks his bonds, and shall idiot-sway hold nations captive? It is the spirit of dignity. Man emulates his proper place and rank :

And though there may be much superficial boast, though the malapert sciolist may be often observed, though the affected confidence may be the look of vacancy, though the vaunted march may be the strut of conceit and the stalk of pride,yet is there in all that encourages our hope and confirms our augury, depth as well as diffusion, and strength as well as lustre. The pillar is massive in every proportion to its ornaThe bed of the river will sustain every rush of its tides and every confluence of its waters. The time shall come when the universal plan will be expounded,-how all has subserved one end, and hastened to one goal. Then shall we

ment.

Such are the prospects which unfold themselves. Their variety and glory, they must be left to disclose. They will break over our world when we are no more. And it mingles a hope with the very pang of dissolution, that as the friends of truth we cannot have lived in vain. We shall have befriended and served a future race, and assisted their entrance upon happier scenes and their progress to nobler stages of improvement. Our example may animate that future race in its turn, and they bequeath a still higher condition to their descendants! It is due to me, however, to observe, that while I most sanguinely and confidently indulge these visions, I dare not pursue them to all their extent, but in belief, and under the guidance, of that Religion which Montesquieu, who was certainly no fanatic, so happily describes: "How admirable the religion which, while it seems only to have in view the felicity of the other life, constitutes the happiness of this !"*

This is our anchor-hope. It fortifies us against all fear of lasting and general retrocessions. Otherwise we should be vexed until we were sick at heart. The pendulum does not describe an arc of more monotonous measurements, nor sweep a succession of more tiresome vibrations, than would the history of our kind, if unaided by other principles and unswayed by other influences, than our own. "It would be great, is not without ambition," but its proneness to ill is the source of its perpetual discomfiture. The force of the resistance would be insuperable. But these give our nature a giant-might,-it but steps back to take a farther spring or to strike a heavier blow. Christianity is that stirring element, and it only can secure what it enables and inspires man to gain. Wherever valuable knowledge and social pre-eminence have been preserved to a people for ages, the lamp of the one and the model of the other have been fed and enshrined in the sanctuary of this Religion. It gave the glory, and is its defence! It breathed the prophecy, and is its fulfilment !

Spirit of Laws.