himself too heavily laden, his enemies began to pull at his ears, until by the lapse of time they have become of their present size.

In the perfect enjoyment of true liberty, man resembles a god. He looks upon his fellow men and says, "I am their equal." He bows to none except his equals, he kneels to none but his lady-love, and prostrates himself only with humility before his God.

Liberty is a female and a goddess; she is to be wooed and won, not in the carpeted drawingroom, but on the battle-field!-not with the soft sound of music, but with the loud thunder of cannon!—not in the graceful movement of the dance, but by the bloody conflict of armed men!

Though a female, she is neither fickle nor false, but full of truth and love; but, unlike a female, she disdains inglorious ease!

To her, the fierce alarm of war and the high resolve of the Council Hall give joy! Soon, too soon, she flies to other lands, to glad their eyes with visions of true happiness.

A river is a boundary to a savage, a lake more, the ocean is impassable; for his bark canoe is not fitted for engagements on the water.

He reveres the mountains, and seldom attempts to pass them; and his empire is always small, and bounded by the more minute physical obstacles on the surface of the earth.

The effect of very small territorial division is unfavorable to the tribes of savages. They fight continually.

Half-civilized nations have some interval of peace between their combats; they do not fight more than half their time.

Civilized nations seldom engage in war. Ascertain the number of wars in which a nation is the attacking party, and it will tell the quantity of happiness which they enjoy, and the degree of civilization to which they have attained.

It has generally been supposed that roads and canals forming extensive lines of communication are favorable to the extension of territorial power. When these are within a natural Kingdom or State, they of course tend to unite the people of a country, but it is questionable whether they can be sufficiently numerous as to join in one sentiment people of distinct national habits. They merely lessen or take away one cause of war, the variance of national custom, leaving all others in full operation.

The five roads and fifty passes across the Pyrenean mountains are not sufficient to join France and Spain.

The magnificent road of the Simplon did not preserve to the Viceroy of France the submission of his Italian subjects.

Roads, however numerous, will not change the seasons, will not alter the geographical situation of a country.

The ocean affords an easy channel of communication between England and France, but it does not combine in one sentiment the people of the two countries.

On this part of the subject, we cannot do better than give the written opinion of an individual who, after occupying the Presidential Chair of

the United States of America, carried with him into retirement all the kind and amiable feelings of human life, united to the deep political sagacity of a statesman, and who exercised the rites of hospitality in the most courteous manner:—

"DEAR SIR,-On turning from the past to the future, speculation may be invited to the influence on those boundaries that may result from new modifications of government, and the operation of art on the geographical features of Nature. The improvement in political science, more particularly the combination of the federal and representative principle, seems to favour a greater expansion of governments on a free form than has been maintainable under the most despotic; while so many of the physical obstacles, hitherto determining the boundaries of States, are now yielding to the means which render mountain, river, lake, and sea, artificially passable, with a facility and celerity which bring distant regions within the compass required for the useful intercommunications. Nor should the telegraph, with its probable improvements, be overlooked as an auxiliary to the convenient exercise of power over an extended space.

(Signed)

JAMES MADDISON.

To. J. Finch, Esq.

France was anciently divided into provinces by strong natural lines of demarcation. The philosophers complained that the people were so absorbed by local feelings, they forgot to be Frenchmen. To obviate this difficulty, at the period of the Revolution, new lines of departments were drawn. All the old territorial arrangements being overturned, and scarcely able to tell under what new arrangement they were placed, Frenchmen rallied around the national standard.

In the good olden time of England, geometry was unknown, and a mathematician would have been looked upon as a sorcerer. When the great, the wise, the good Alfred rescued England from the incursions of the Danes, and wished to restore order and regularity and legislative discipline to his harassed people, he traced upon the soil of England that division into shires which has contributed so much to the welfare of the kingdom. For this purpose he chiefly made use of the geographical features of the country, and rivers and ranges of hills were eagerly seized upon as affording prominent lines of frontier to these smaller provinces. Thus on the eastern coast, the rivers Tyne, the Tees, the Humber, the Waveney, the Stour, and the Thames, are all made useful, as forming the divisional lines of counties.