Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, Bost., 1858, 8vo; Essays on the Soiling of Cattle, Illustrated by Experience, etc., Bost., 1859, 8vo, 2d edit., 1860, new edit., 1866, 8vo. He also published many Addresses, Speeches, etc., and from one of these minor publications we present an extract.

"Few men have acquired so just a distinction for unspotted integrity, fearless justice, consistent principles, high talents, and extensive literature. Still fewer possess the merit of having justified the public confidence by the singleness of heart and purpose with which they have devoted themselves to the best interests of society."-JUDGE JOSEPH STORY: Dedication of Story's Miscellaneous Works to the Hon. Josiah Quincy, LL.D., October, 1835.

THE CHARACTER OF NEW ENGLAND. If, after this general survey of the surface of New England, we cast our eyes on its cities and great towns, with what wonder should we behold, did not familiarity render the phenomenon almost unnoticed, men, combined in great multitudes, possessing freedom and the consciousness of strength, -the comparative physical power of a ruler less than that of a cobweb across a lion's path,—yet orderly, obedient, and respectful to authority; a people, but no populace; every class in reality existing which the general law of society acknowledges, except one, and this exception characterizing the whole country. The soil of New England is trodden by no slave. In our streets, in our assemblies, in the halls of election and legislation, men of every rank and condition meet, and unite or divide on other principles, and are actuated by other motives than those growing out of such distinctions. The fears and jealousies which in other countries separate classes of men, and make them hostile to each other, have here no influence, or a very limited one. Each individual, of whatever condition, has the consciousness of living under known laws, which secure equal rights, and guarantee to each whatever portion of the goods of life, be it great or small, chance or talent or industry may have bestowed. All perceive that the honors and rewards of society are open equally to the fair competition of all,-that the distinctions of wealth, or of power, are not fixed in families, that whatever of this nature exists to-day may be changed to-morrow, or, in a coming generation, be absolutely reversed. Common principles, interests, hopes, and affections are the result of universal education. Such are the consequences of the equality of rights, and of the provisions for the general diffusion of knowledge, and the distribution of intestate estates, established by the laws framed by the earliest emigrants to New England.

If from our cities we turn to survey the wide expanse of the interior, how do the effects of the institutions and example of our early ancestors appear, in all the local comfort and accommodation which mark the general condition of the whole country!unobtrusive indeed, but substantial; in nothing splendid, but in everything sufficient and satisfactory. Indications of active talent and practical energy exist everywhere. With a soil comparatively little luxuriant, and in great proportion either rock, or hill, or sand, the skill and industry of man are seen triumphing over the obstacles of nature: making the rock the guardian of the field; moulding the granite as though it were clay : leading cultivation to the hill-top, and spreading over the arid plain hitherto unknown and unanticipated harvests. The lofty mansion of the prosperous adjoins the lowly dwelling of the husbandman; their respective inmates are in the daily interchange of civility, sympathy, and respect. Enterprise and skill, which once held chief affinity with the ocean or the sea-board, now begin to delight the interior, haunting our rivers, where the music of the waterfall, with powers more attractive than those of the fabled harp of Orpheus, collects around it intellectual man and material nature. Towns and cities, civilized and happy communities, rise, like exhalations, on rocks and in forests, till the deep and far-sounding voice of the neighboring torrent is itself lost and unheard, amid the predominating noise of successful and rejoicing labor.

What lessons has New England, in every period of her history, given to the world! What lessons do her condition and example still give! How unprecedented, yet how practical! How simple, yet how powerful! She has proved that all the variety of Christian sects may live together in harmony under a government which allows equal privileges to all, exclusive pre-eminence to none. She has proved that ignorance among the multitude is not necessary to order, but that the surest basis of perfect order is the information of the people. She has proved the old maxim, that “No government except a despotism with a standing army can subsist where the people have arms," to be false. Ever since the first settlement of the country arms have been required to be in the hands of the whole multitude of New England; yet the use of them in a private quarrel, if it have ever happened, is so rare that a late writer of great intelligence, who had passed his whole life in New England and possessed extensive means of information, declares, "I know not a single instance of it." [See Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight, S.T.D.,

LL.D., late President of Yale College, vol. iv., p. 334. Foot-note.] She has proved that a people of a character essentially military may subsist without duelling. New England has at all times been distinguished both on the land and on the ocean for a daring, fearless, and enterprising spirit; yet the same writer asserts [ibid., p. 336] that, during the whole period of her existence her soil has been disgraced but by five duels, and that only two of these were fought by her native inhabitants! Perhaps this assertion is not minutely correct. There can, however, be no question that it is sufficiently near the truth to justify the position for which it is here adduced, and which the history of New England, as well as the experience of her inhabitants, abundantly confirms, that, in the present and in every past age the spirit of our institutions has, to every important practical purpose, annihilated the spirit of duelling.

Such are the true glories of the institutions of our fathers! Such the natural fruits of that patience in toil, that frugality of disposition, that temperance of habit, that general diffusion of knowledge, and that sense of religious responsibility, inculcated by the precepts, and exhibited in the example, of every generation of our ancestors!

The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light on every page of our history, the language addressed by every past age of New England to all future ages, is this: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom, none but virtue; virtue, none but knowledge; and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor knowledge has any vigor, or immortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion.

Men of Massachusetts! citizens of Boston! descendants of the early emigrants! consider your blessings; consider your duties. You have an inheritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of six successive generations of ancestors. They founded the fabric of your prosperity in a severe and masculine morality, having intelligence for its cement, and religion for its groundwork. Continue to build on the same foundation, and by the same principles; let the extending temple of your country's freedom rise, in the spirit of ancient times, in proportions of intellectual and moral architecture,-just, simple, and sublime. As from the first to this day, let New England continue to be an example to the world of the blessings of a free government, and of the means and capacity of man to maintain it. And in all times to come, as in all times past, may Boston be among the foremost and the boldest

to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the prosperity, the happiness, and the glory of New England.

Address to the Citizens of Boston, XVII. September, MDCCCXXX., the Close of the Second Century from the First Settlement of the City, Bost., 1830, 8vo.

FRANCIS JEFFREY, born in Edinburgh, 1773, educated at the University of Glasgow and at Queen's College, Oxford, was admitted an advocate at the Scotch bar 1794; was editor of The Edinburgh Review (of which he was with Henry Brougham and Sydney Smith a cofounder), July, 1803, to June, 1829, Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, 1820, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, June, 1829, Lord Advocate, 1830, member of Parliament, 1831-1834, Judge in the Scotch Court of Session, with the title of Lord Jeffrey, from 1834 until his death, 1850.

To The Edinburgh Review he contributed 200 articles,-No. I, being the first article in the first number, October, 1802, and No. 200, published January, 1848. Of these, 79 were published together as Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, London, 1843, 4 vols. 8vo, 2d edit., 1846, 3 vols. 8vo, 3d edit., 1853, 8vo. The 121 remaining articles should be collected. His article on Beauty, republished, with alterations, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, will be found in the Contributions to the Edinburgh Review.

the theory of taste, it is the most complete in its "Of all the treatises that have been published on philosophy and the most delightful in its writing; and it is as sound as the subject admits of."-LORD COCKBURN: Life of Lord Jeffrey, vol. i.

"Few works of the kind are more questionable in the principle, or more loose in the arrangement and argument."-LYALL: Agonistes, or Philosoph. Strictures, etc., Lond., 1856, 18-44.

writer: he has few tropes or figures, still less any "Mr. Jeffrey is far from a flowery or affected odd startling thoughts or quaint innovations in expression; but he has a constant supply of ingenious solutions and pertinent examples; he never proses, never grows dull, never wears an argument facility of his transitions, keeps that appearance of vivacity, of novel and sparkling effect, for which others are too often indebted to singularity of com. bination or tinsel ornaments."-HAZLITT: Spirit of the Age. See also Selections from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, Esq. Edited by His Son, Macvey Napier. London, 1879, 8vo. Index, p. 548.

to tatters: and by the number, the liveliness, and

PROGRESS OF ENGLISH LITerature.

By far the most considerable change which has taken place in the world of letters, in

be at once witty and rational themselves, with as good a grace as possible; but to give their countenance to no wisdom, no fancy, and no morality which passes the standards current in good company. Their inspiration, accordingly, is nothing more than a sprightly sort of good sense; and they have scarcely any invention but what is subservient to the purposes of derision and satire. Little gleams of pleasantry and sparkles of wit glitter through their compositions; but no glow of feeling-no blaze of imagination-no flashes of genius ever irradiate their substance. They never pass beyond" the visible diurnal sphere," or deal in any thing that can either lift us above our vulgar nature, or ennoble its reality. With these accomplishments, they may pass well enough for sensible and polite writers, but scarcely for men of genius; and it is certainly far more surprising that persons of this description should have inaintained themselves for near a century, at the head of the literature of a country that had previously produced a Shakspeare, a Spenser, a Bacon, and a Taylor, than that, towards the end of that long period, doubts should have arisen as to the legitimacy of a title by which they laid claim to that high station. Both parts of the phenomenon, however, we dare say, had causes which better expounders might explain to the satisfaction of all the world. We see them but imperfectly, and have room only for an imperfect sketch of what we see.

Our first literature consisted of saintly legends and romances of chivalry, though Chaucer gave it a more national and popular character, by his original descriptions of external nature, and the familiarity and gaiety of his social humour. In the time of Elizabeth it received a copious infusion of classical images and ideas; but it was still intrinsically romantic, serious, and even somewhat lofty and enthusiastic. Authors were then so few in number that they were looked upon with a sort of veneration, and considered as a kind of inspired persons; at least they were not yet so numerous as to be obliged to abuse each other, in order to obtain a share of distinction for themselves; and they neither affected a tone of derision in their writings, nor wrote in fear of derision from others. They were filled with their subjects, and dealt with them fearlessly in their own way; and the stamp of originality, force, and freedom is consequently upon almost all their productions. In the reign of James I. our literature, with some few exceptions, touching rather the form than the substance of its merits, appears to us to have reached the greatest perfection to which it has yet attained; though

it would probably have advanced still farther in the succeeding reign had not the great national dissensions which then arose turned the talent and energy of the people into other channels,-first to the assertion of their civil rights, and afterwards to the discussion of their religious interests. The graces of literature suffered of course in those fierce contentions, and a deeper shade of austerity was thrown upon the intellectual character of the nation. Her genius, however, though less captivating and adorned than in the happier days which preceded, was still active, fruitful, and commanding; and the period of the civil wars, besides the mighty minds that guided the public counsels, and were absorbed in public cares, produced the giant powers of Taylor, and Hobbes, and Barrow,-the muse of Milton, the learning of Coke, and the ingenuity of Cowley.

The Restoration introduced a French court, under circumstances more favourable for the effectual exercise of court influence than ever before existed in England; but this of itself would not have been sufficient to account for the sudden change in our literature which ensued. It was seconded by causes of far more general operation. The Restoration was undoubtedly a popular act; and, indefensible as the conduct of the army and the civil leaders was on that occasion, there can be no question that the severities of Cromwell and the extravagances of the sectaries had made republican professions hateful and religious ardour ridiculous, in the eyes of a great proportion of the people. All the eminent writers of the preceding period, however, had inclined to the party that was now overthrown, and their writings had not merely been accommodated to the character of the government under which they were produced, but were deeply imbued with its obnoxious principles, which were those of their respective authors. When the restraints of authority were taken off, therefore, and it became profitable, as well as popular, to discredit the fallen party, it was natural that the leading authors should affect a style of levity and derision, as most opposite to that of their opponents, and best calculated for the purposes they had in view. The nation, too, was now for the first time essentially divided in point of character and principle, and a much greater proportion were capable both of writing in support of their own notions and of being influenced by what was written. Add to this, that there were real and serious defects in the style and manner of the former generation. and that the grace, and brevity, and vivacity of that gayer manner, which was now introduced from France, were not only good and captivating in themselves, but had then all