so useful to remedy the unavoidable insufficiency of the laws, and keep within their respective bounds all those persons who enjoy any share of public authority. As they are thereby made sensible that all their actions are exposed to public view, they dare not venture upon those acts of partiality, those secret connivances at the iniquities of particular persons, or those vexatious practices which the man in office is but too apt to be guilty of, when, exercising his office at a distance from the public eye, and as it were in a corner, he is satisfied that, provided he be cautious, he may dispense with being just. Whatever may be the kind of abuse in which persons in power may, in such a state of things, be tempted to indulge themselves, they are convinced that their irregularities will be immediately divulged. The juryman, for example, knows that his verdict the judge, that his direction to the jury-will presently be laid before the public: and there is no man in office but who thus finds himself compelled, in almost every instance, to choose between his duty and the surrender of all his former reputation. It will, I am aware, be thought that I speak in too high terms of the effects produced by the public newspapers. I indeed confess that all the pieces contained in them are not patterns of good reasoning, or of the truest Attic wit; but, on the other hand, it scarcely ever happens that a subject, in which the laws, or in general the public welfare, are really concerned, fails to call forth. some able writer, who, under some form or other, communicates to the public his observations and complaints. I shall add here, that, though an upright man, laboring for a while under a strong popular prejudice, may, supported by the consciousness of his innocence, endure with patience the severest imputations; the guilty man, hearing nothing in the reproaches of the public but what he knows to be true, and already upbraids himself with, is very far from enjoying any such comfort; and that, when a man's own conscience takes part against him, the most despicable weapon is sufficient to wound him to the quick. Even those persons whose greatness seems most to set them above the reach of public censure are not those who least feel its effects. They have need of the suffrages of the vulgar whom they affect to despise, and who are, after all, the dispensers of that glory which is the real object of their ambitious cares. Though all have not so much sincerity as Alexander, they have - equal reason to exclaim, to exclaim, O people! what toils do we not undergo, in order to gain your applause! I confess that in a state where the people dare not speak their sentiments but with a view to please the ears of their rulers, it is possible that either the prince, or those to whom he has trusted his authority, may sometimes mistake the nature of the public sentiments; or that, for want of that affection of which they are denied all possible marks, they may rest contented with inspiring terror, and make themselves amends in beholding the overawed multitudes smother their complaints. But when the law gives a full scope to the people for the expression of their sentiments, those who govern cannot conceal from themselves the disagreeable truths which resound from all sides. They are obliged to put up even with ridicule; and the coarsest jests are not always those which give them the least uneasiness. Like the lion in the fable, they must bear the blows of those enemies whom they despise the most; and they are, at length, stopped short in their career, and compelled to give up those unjust pursuits which, they find, draw upon them, instead of that admiration which is the proposed end and reward of their labors, nothing but mortification and disgust. In short, whoever considers what it is that constitutes the moving principle of what we call great affairs, and the invincible sensibility of man to the opinion of his fellow-creatures, will not hesitate to affirm that if it were possible for the liberty of the press to exist in a despotic government, and (what is not less difficult) for it to exist without changing the constitution, this liberty would alone form a counterpoise to the power of the prince. If, for example, in an empire of the East, a place could be found which, rendered respectable by the ancient religion of the people, might ensure safety to those who should bring thither their observations of any kind, and from this sanctuary printed papers should issue, which, under a certain seal, might be equally respected, and which in their daily appearance should examine and freely discuss the conduct of the cadis, the pashas, the vizir, the divan, and the sultan himself,- that would immediately introduce some degree of liberty. Chapter xii. of "The Constitution of IV-82 JOSEPH DENNIE (1768-1812) ARLIER American essayists have been so completely eclipsed by Washington Irving that, with one or two notable exceptions, they are hardly remembered even by name. It is almost, if not quite, true that the American prose which is entitled to rank as "literature," because of strong individuality and grace of style, begins with Irving. But he was an evolution, rather than a sudden, isolated, and miraculous phenomenon. The school of Addison, in which he was the first American "honor-graduate," had many pupils in the Colonies as well as after the Revolution. Among the more influential of the post-colonial periodical essayists was Joseph Dennie, born in Boston, August 30th, 1768; died in Philadelphia, January 7th, 1812. In 1795 he published his first book, "The Farrago." From 1796 to 1798 he edited the Farmers' Weekly Museum, at Walpole, New Hampshire, and began in it the publication of a series of essays from "The Lay Preacher." At about the same time he published a collection in book form under the same title, and a second collection appeared in 1817. In 1801 he founded the Portfolio in Philadelphia. He was a man of vigorous intellect, and his failure to perpetuate himself as one of the permanent forces of American literature is explained by combative habits which, as they influence his essays, make them valuable chiefly to antiquarians and students of history-making prejudices. A ON JEFFERSON AND FRENCH PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHER, in the modern sense of the word, I would define a presumptuous mortal, proudly spurning at old systems, and promptly inventing new. Be the materials ever so naught, be their connection ever so slight, be the whole ever so disjointed and crazy, if it be new, these confident architects will swear that their building will accommodate you better than any that you have previously used. To catch the eye and abuse the credulity of wondering fools, the puppet-show philosopher exhibits his scheme, gorgeously painted and gloriously illuminated, and bellows all the time in praise of his varnished ware. The whole is artfully calculated to captivate and charm all, except those few who are not suddenly delighted with such representations, who know of what stuff they are made, for what purposes they are intended, and in what they are sure invariably to end. Such men gaze only to deride. But laugh as you please, the philosophers find in human nature such a fund of credulity, that be their draughts large as they may, no protest is anticipated. It is a bank, not merely of discount but deposit, and bolstered up by all the credit of the great body corporate of all the weakness in the world The moment that a man arrives in this fairy and chivalric land of French philosophy, he beholds at every creek and corner something to dazzle and surprise, but nothing steadfast or secure. The surface is slippery, and giants, and dwarfs, and wounded knights and distressed damsels abound. Nor are enchanters wanting; and they are the philosophers themselves. They will, in a twinkling, conjure away kingdoms, chain a prince's daughter in a dungeon, and give to court pages, lackeys, and all those "airy nothings » « a local habitation and a name. >> If the adventurer in this fantastic region be capriciously weary of his old mansion, the philosophic enchanters will quickly furnish a choice of castles, "roughly rushing to the skies." They are unstable, it is true, and comfortless, and cold, and cemented with blood, but show spaciously at a distance, with portcullis most invitingly open for the free and equal admission of all mankind. Those who have been professors of the new philosophy of France, and their servile devotees in America, taint everything they touch. Like the dead insect in the ointment, they cause the whole to send forth an odious and putrid savor. Instead of viewing man as he is, they are continually forming plans for man as he should be. Nothing established, nothing common, is admitted into their systems. They invert all the rules of adaptation. They wish to fashion nature and society in their whimsical mold, instead of regulating that mold according to the proportions of society and nature. To men of the complexion of Condorcet and his associates, most of the miseries of France may be ascribed. Full of paradox, recent from wire-drawing in the schools, and with mind all begrimed from the Cyclops cave of metaphysics, behold a Sieyes, in the form of a politician, draughting, currente calamo, three hundred constitutions in a day, and not one of them fit for use, but delusive as a mountebank's bill, and bloody as the habiliments of a Banquo. Of this dangerous, deistical, and Utopian school, a great personage from Virginia is a favored pupil. His Gallic masters stroke his head, and pronounce him forward and promising. Those who sit in the same form cheerfully and reverently allow him to be the head of his class. In allusion to the well marshaled words of a great orator, him they worship; him they emulate; his "notes" they con over all the time they can spare from the "Aurora" of the morning, or French politics at night. The man has talents, but they are of a dangerous and delusive kind. He has read much, and can write plausibly. He is a man of letters, and should be a retired one. His closet, and not the cabinet, is his place. In the first he might harmlessly examine the teeth of a nondescript monster, the secretions of an African, or the Almanac of Banneker. At home he might catch a standard of weight from the droppings of his eaves, and, seated in his epicurean chair, laugh at Moses and the prophets, and wink against the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. At the seat of government his abstract, inapplicable, metaphysico-politics are either nugatory or noxious. Besides, his principles relish so strongly of Paris, and are seasoned with such a profusion of French garlic that he offends the whole nation. Better for Americans that on their extended plains "thistles should grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley," than that a "philosopher" should influence the councils of the country, and that his admiration of the works of Voltaire and Helvetius should induce him to wish a closer connection with Frenchmen. When a metaphysical and Gallic government obtains in America, may the pen drop from the hand and "the arm fall from the shoulder blade of THE LAY PREACHER. From "The Lay Preacher» in the |