voured spot to which he retreated from the admiration of the civilized world. Judge Washington has very properly refused to permit them to be removed. About a year ago the sum of ten thousand dollars was appropriated to the purpose of erecting a monument by the state of Massachusetts. Whether we are to behold another dead letter law, remains to be seen. The lottery monument at Baltimore, by which we are irresistibly reminded of a certain tax that was levied by one of the popes-is rising from the earth. But the most substantial act that we have seen,-the only one that is worthy of the living or the dead-has recently been passed in the state of North-Carolina. Instead of the cautious calculations which we find in the north, or the mean appeal to sordid motives, displayed in the monument to the south, the governor of Carolina, by the direction of the legislature, has placed the sum of ten thousand dollars in the hands of signor Conova, a Roman sculptor, in return for which, he has engaged to execute a statue of Washington.

Can the society whose proceedings have occasioned these remarks, adorn our city with some memorial of this description; or shall they rather endeavour to perpetuate the illustrious name, by a rigid adherence to the principles of the greatest among men?

PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS: or Sketches of the Public Character of some of the most distinguished Speakers in the House of Commons. Originally printed in the Examiner. 8vo.. pp. 236. Price 8s. Baldwin and Co. 1815.

(From the Eclectic Review.)

THE English House of Commons, we venture to assert, is still incomparably the noblest political assembly in the world. Although our senators do not present the majestic spectacle of aged and reverend forms with snow-white beards, invested with the flowing toga, such as struck awe into the barbarian invaders of ancient Rome; although no scenic pump, such as attends the conclaves of cardinals and the levees of princes, confers outward splendour on their proceedings;-although those proceedings are in fact vastly less dignified and less interesting, and characterized by a display of intellect, feeling, or energy, far less than one might be innocently led to anticipate;-still, that such an assembly exists, an assembly of cominoners and free men, constituting an essential part of the national government, and actually transacting in the face of society, the business of legislation, which elsewhere is for the most part carried on in mystery and darkness, in the chambers and cabinets of Power:-this is a circumstance

in itself replete with grandeur. Who can tell what influence the existence of one such assembly may have on the rulers of other countries, to deter them from enormities of aggression on the liberties of their subjects, or to induce them to concede a measure of freedom? The galling recollection, that in this one assembly the deeds of princes will be canvassed with unshackled freedom and with absolute impunity, and the wrongs of humanity obtain audience, if not redress; the apprehension that from the heart of the British people a voice may go forth, to rouse and animate the enslaved and oppressed, may well be supposed to have had a decided influence in strengthening the restraints of fear or of policy. An institute like that in which our constitutional liberty is embodied, constitutes a beacon which the people of other countries, who languish for liberty, must regard with hope, and at which tyrants must sicken with dismay.

With regard to this nation, we are not certain whether the very circumstances, which on a nearer view of the subject, are calculated to detract from the impressiveness of such an assembly, and to lessen the public confidence in its decisions, ought not to enhance in our estimation, the value of our constitutional privileges. As it is of infinitely greater moment that the British people should be taught to think well of their institutions, than that they should implicitly reverence the administrators of power, they should be taught to perceive how excellently secured are those liberties which Power dares not infringe, and corruption cannot quite destroy; how valuable must be those constitutional forms which, when the spirit of the constitution slumbers, still determine a boundary that the minister of the crown dares not pass! How admirably framed must be that complicated machinery, which so inconsiderable a degree of collective intellectual energy, is competent to keep in motion, so as to effect the general purposes of government. Those who most sincerely urge the necessity of Parliamentary Reform, cannot be supposed blind to the inestimable advantages resulting from even that partial representation which the country enjoys. The national will is at least recognised as a party necessarily co-operating in the acts of government, and it is still to a certain degree exerted, controlling, if we may so express it, the physical elements of power, and modifying the authority of law. The House of Commons, in fact, constitutes a standing recognition of the nature of the compact on which legitimate authority is founded, while what it has actually achieved for Europe, forms a no less striking illustration of the true nature of national power.

When we allude to the moderate rate of ability which is exhibited by the members of the present House of Commons, it is obvious, that we do not presume to sit in judgment on the general qualifications of its leaders as statesmen; nor would we by any means disparage that diligent attention to the details of political business, which characterizes the present administration. It is in

reference to the low degree of intellectual exertion in debate, the dearth of eloquence, and the substitution of a mechanical plan of oratorical warfare for an independent adherence to constitutional principles, that we allow of the justness of this moderated estimate.

6 Subjects of almost incalculable interest,' remarks our Portrait painter, "are to be discussed: peace and war, laws, morals, manufactures, commerce, all that concerns the wealth, the happiness, the glory of nations. Can the imagination conceive a finer field for oratorical emulation; more powerful incentives to awaken the mind to develop all its energies and all its graces through its noble organ, the tongue? What is the fact? About half a dozen speakers, who have acquired a certain fluent mediocrity, are allowed to settle the disputed proposition with little knowledge and less spirit, whilst the rest remain idle and almost unconcerned hearers, sometimes yawning, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes, to evince perhaps their claims to sit in a speaking assembly, shouting in a style to be envied only by a Stentor or a whipper in. It is indeed matter of humiliating reflection that, in a country like England, whose philosophers, and poets, and artists, may go side by side with the proudest names of antiquity-whose wealth and power make Greece dwindle into insignificance, and might dispute the precedence even with the gigantic despotism of Imperial Rome; in a country too, blest with a popular congress, where the voices of the chiefs of the nation may be heard, that scarcely one man has arisen who deserves the title of orator; scarcely one, who like Cicero, by the mere power of words, has darted the public indignation against a state delinquent, or like Demosthenes has electrified a whole people with one universal impulse of patriotism.' pp. 3, 4.

Criticus, (as the author styled himself in the EXAMINER,) proceeds to remark, that it would require a long dissertation to investigate the cause of this oratorical inferiority of our countrymen. He will not allow that it is to be ascribed in any degree to the good sense of the nation; or that it can be made a question whether Pericles and Demosthenes, Cæsar and Cicero, had as much good sense as lords Liverpool and Castlereagh. This is, however, rather flippantly said, since the comparison can not with fairness be drawn between individuals, and we suspect that at no period could Greece or Rome present an assembly of which Pericles or Cicero might be assumed to be an average specimen. Besides, our author in the subsequent sentences would seem to admit, that under the present circumstances of the case, it might be an indication of good sense to abstain from a useless expenditure of eloquence.

'A better reason,' he says; 'may perhaps be found in the constitution of that Assembly, which only assumes the character of being popular; and, . while it pretends to regulate its decisions by deliberative wisdom, in fact listens only to the voice of power. In such a meeting, however grand the matter of debate, there is little stimulus for any but the most enterprising mind to waste its powers on a predetermined audience: for what could the voice of an angel do against a silent vote bought in silence! These purchased decisions, these previously bargained securities against the possible effects of eloquence, are sufficient to extirpate all the motives for ex

ertion in the common run of ambitious men. Even a man, whose love of fame is purified from mere selfishness, may be forgiven, if he hesitates a little before he will devote the whole faculties of his mind to astonish an audience, who are bound by honour or by covenant not to be convinced, though Demosthenes, should rise from the dead: and to whom is left merely the half animal capacity of receiving pleasure from the sound of well harmonized periods. It asks a mind of no common firmness, of no common benevolence, to persevere in haranguing an impenetrable assembly from the almost baseless hope that some better spirit may disenthrall itself from its ignoble bondage, and dare to act solely at the direction of virtue and intelligence.' pp. 7, 8.

This does not quite account for the phenomenon. Eloquence would be a very dangerous faculty, if it were always available for carrying the disputed point, and its possessor would require a portion of infallibility, to deserve always to come off victor. A majority of votes is, as our author admits, not the only criterion of the successful exertion of talent. A virtuous patriot would find his sufficient reward in those 'slow and regulated benefits' which would be sure to result from his perseverance in assailing a corrupt administration. He might control those whom he could not dispossess of power; he might deter from attempts which he could not frustrate. He is pleading at the tribunal of his country, in the audience of the civilized world, and surely, how unavailing soever may be his efforts to accomplish the exact amount of good he aims at, he has no feeble inducements to exert his utmost faculties on the side of truth and virtue. He may despise the plaudits of the mob; but as he will not regard the interest which the English people take in parliamentary discussions, in the light of a ridiculous or unimportant characteristic, so, he will estimate aright the immense value of the average opinions of the people. In fact, the ideal orator we are portraying, may more perfectly realize all that our author ascribes with considerable justice to the exertions of Whitbread. If he cannot command a majority of votes, he may command a majority of opinions. He may "command and guide the sense of the nation.”

'A force ten times more powerful than the House of Commons, because it always, directly or indirectly, influences the conduct of that assembly. To this the proudest minister is forced to bow; with reference to this he fabricates every measure: a piece of meditated tyranny is clipped away from this law; a patch of desirable fraud is torn from this arrangement; and corruption itself is quietly purged of the most acrid particles of its poison. Such is the power of a great moral check when directed by an able and honest man.'

How is it then, that so wide a scope presenting itself for virtuous ambition, with all that is pressing in the occasion, and all that is interesting in the subject, for the display of the highest faculties of ratiocination and eloquence, that the House of Commons does not furnish a counterpart to this ideal portrait? In the meagre list of "contents" to the present volume, although they comprise every name of note in the House, we in vain look for a cha

racter of sufficient prominence and of sufficient consistency, unless in the distinguished and lamented person above referred to, to justify our fixing upon him the noble designation of an excep tion. If in point of capability and of uprightness of intention, the distinction is due to any individual, we should incline to pass over the pretensions of more popular declaimers, to attest the justness of the encomium passed by our author on the eloquence of Mr. Wilberforce as implying that exception. We find him strangely enough associated with Mr. W. Smith, who is characterized as having had the courage to touch the awful ark of the pure English constitution, and it is his praise, and no slight praise, that he has not utterly sunk in the attempt.'

To go from the calm good sense of Mr. W. Smith to the enthusiastic declamation of Mr. Wilberforce, may seem to some a very rapid transition: but those who have watched the conduct of these gentlemen must, I think, see that their object is the same, and that therefore they ought to be associated. He whose wish is to emancipate opinion from penalty will rejoice to have for his companion the man who has, though late indeed, so eloquently pleaded the catholic cause, and who for years stood. forth the irrepressible champion of the rights of the Negro. Indeed, when I consider the ardent and persevering struggle which Mr. Wilberforce so long maintained against the united strength of power and prejudice, and contemplate his final success in that noble work, I feel it to be a humiliation to descend to scan petty defects, and the mere errors of our common humanity. Who that looks upon an abundant harvest, ripened by the rays of a summer sun, will sit down to calculate how often that sun has been overclouded? Or to come more to men and things, who would estimate Locke by his prolixity, or Shakspeare by his puns: Yet such is the rage for analyzing faults:-the common mind is so much more fitted to seize a flaw than to comprehend an excellence, that a writer would be thought most blind and partial who would suffer even a saint to pass by unreprehended. What then can be alleged against Mr. Wilberforce? Want of decision, arising, some think from timidity, others say from want of highmindedness, seems to be his principal foible. Often will he support a position in a strain of eloquence to which the House is but little accustomed, and end (Oh lame conclusion!) in persuading almost every mind but his own. He has at length however broke the chain of his scruples, and last session, with a warmth of language and manner quite his own, unequivocally recommended the abolition of penal statutes in matters of religion. The speeches indeed of Mr. Wilberforce are among the very few good things now remaining in the British Parliament: his diction is elegant, rich, and spirited: his tones (excuse some party-whine) are so distinct and so melodious, that the most hostile ear hangs on them delighted. Then his address is so insinuating that, if he talked nonsense, you would feel yourself obliged to hear him. I recollect that last session, when the house had been tired night after night with discussing the endless questions relating to Indian policy, when the commerce and finances and resources of our oriental empire had exhausted the lungs of all the speakers, and the patience of all the auditors-at that period Mr. Wilberforce, with a just confidence in his powers, ventured to broach the hacknied subject of Hindoo conversion. He spoke three hours, but nobody seemed fatigued: all indeed were pleased, some with the ingenious artifices of his manner, but most with the glowing lan