V.-1. On the Employment of Children in Factories and other Works in the United Kingdom and in some foreign Countries. By Leonard Horner, F.R.S., Inspector of 2. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Act for the Regulation of Mills and Factories VI. 1. The Rod and the Gun; being two Treatises on Angling and Shooting. By James Wilson, F.R.S.E., and by the 3. Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and Miseries of Fishing, &c. By Richard Penn, F.R.S. VII.-1. A Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Claims of the Church of Scotland in regard to its Jurisdiction; and on the proposed Changes in its Polity. By John Hope, 2. Remarks on the present Position of the Church of Scotland. By Thomas Chalmers, D D. 3. The Speech of the Right Honourable the Earl of Aber- deen in the House of Lords on Tuesday, May 5, 1840. 4. The Earl of Aberdeen's Correspondence with the Rev. 5. What ought the Church and the People of Scotland to do now? By Thomas Chalmers, D.D. and LL.D. 6. An humble Attempt to put an end to the present Divi- sions in the Church of Scotland, and to promote her Usefulness. By the Rev. Lewis Rose, A.M., Minister of the Duke Street Gaëlic Church, Glasgow VIII.-1. England's Threatened War with the World. 2. Progress and present Position of Russia in the East. 4. Proposed Impeachment of Lord Palmerston. Reports of two Public Meetings held at Carlisle and Newcastle- upon-Tyne upon the Foreign Relations of the Country, and the Collusive and Treasonable Concert asserted to exist between the Foreign Minister and Russia. 5. Reasons for demanding Investigation into the Charges against Lord Palmerston. By R. Monteith, Esq. 6. Cairo, Petra, and Damascus, in 1839, with Remarks on I. History of Scotland. By P. F. Tytler, Esq.-Vol. VII. - 303 II.-1. Recollections of a Tour in the North of Europe. By VI.-Trifles from my Portfolio; or, Recollections of Scenes and small Adventures during Twenty-nine Years' Military VII. La Révolution telle qu'elle est; ou Correspondance inédite du Comité de Salut public avec les Généraux et les Représentans du Peuple en Mission près les armées et ART. Page VIII-1. Correspondence relating to the North American Bound- ary. Presented by command of her Majesty. 2. Report of the British Commissioners appointed to sur- vey the Territory in dispute between Great Britain and the United States of America on the North-Eastern Boundary of the United States. 3. The Right of the United States to the North-Eastern Boundary claimed by them. Principally extracted from the Statements laid before the King of the Netherlands, and revised by Albert Gallatin. 4. A Brief History of the United States' Boundary Ques- tion. Drawn up from Official Papers. By G. P. R. IX.-1. Columbanus ad Hibernos. 2. The Case of the Church of Ireland stated in a Letter to 3. National Schools of Ireland Defended. By Francis 4. Historical Sketches of the Native Irish. By Christopher 5. Ireland: its Evils traced to their Source. By the Rev. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Eloquence of the United States. Compiled by E. B. Willison. 5 vols. 8vo. Middletown, Conn., 1827. 2. Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry. By William Wirt, of Richmond, Virginia. Ninth edition, corrected by the Author. Philadelphia, 1838. 3. Orations and Speeches on various occasions. Everett. Boston, 1836. By Edward 4. Speeches and Forensic Arguments. By Daniel Webster. 2 vols. Boston, 1838. THE Rev. Sydney Smith once wrote an article in the Edin burgh Review (re-published amongst his works), proving, to the entire dissatisfaction of the Americans, that they had produced no names in art, science, or literature, since they became a nation, capable of standing a minute's competition with those produced by England within the same period. This was a little too much; and one of their crack reviewers was commissioned to answer the divine. After a little preliminary castigation, he proceeded to demolish him by a set of searching interrogatories, commencing somewhat in this fashion: Has this writer never heard of Jared Sparks, or Timothy Dwight? Has he never heard of Buckminster, Griscom, Ames, Wirt, Brown, Fitch, Flint, Frisbie, and Silliman ?' Now it is most assuredly no matter of boast; for many of the writers on the list were men of undoubted talent, and have since obtained well-merited celebrity; but we much fear that Mr. Sydney Smith never had heard of one of them. If he had, he would certainly have been proportionally in advance of the great majority of the reading English public at the time. We have since done a little towards supplying our deficiencies in this respect; but if we were put through the same sort of catechism, most of us should still betray a lamentable degree of ignorance as to the indigenous literature of the United States,-and not less as to their oratory. During Mr. Webster and Miss Sedgewick's visit to England last spring, it was quite amusing to watch the puzzled faces of the company on the announcement of their names in a drawing-room; for notwithstanding the reprint of Miss Sedgewick's Tales,' and the constant mention of Mr. Webster by the • Genevese 6 VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXIII. B 'Genevese Traveller' of the Times,' nine persons out of ten in the élite of English society had about as accurate a notion of their respective claims to celebrity as Lord Melbourne of Mr. Faraday's, when it was proposed to add that gentleman's name to the pension-list. To prevent the recurrence of such scenes when Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, or Mr. Everett, shall honour us with a visit, we propose, in the present article, to bring our readers acquainted with the leading orators in the United States, by short sketches of their career and characteristic passages from their speeches,—to play, in short, the Timon' of America; and any comparison we may afterwards choose to institute as to the respective excellence of the two countries in this branch of intellectual exertion, will at least not expose us to the reproach of having selected a field in which the advantage is necessarily on the side of the mothercountry. Seventy years of democratic institutions may not be sufficient to form a style or perfect a school of art, but they are enough, in all conscience, to show what a nation can do in eloquence and statesmanship. The eloquence of the Americans, like that of the French, dates from their revolution; but they started under widely different auspices. When the National Assembly was first called together, the members were utterly unacquainted with the forms of business, or the tactics of debate. Dumont tells us that the only orators who possessed any talent for improvisation were Maury, Clermont-Tonnerre, Barnave, and Thouret; and of these Barnave alone was capable of extemporising an entire speech of any length. Mirabeau clearly was not; and most of his best passages are short, rapid, and electrical, flashing out from between the trains of argumentation laboriously prepared for him, like lightning through clouds. In North America, on the contrary, the habit of public speaking was as familiar as in the mothercountry at this hour: each provincial assembly was a school ; and the very first Congress conducted their debates and carried their resolutions in as orderly and business-like a manner, as if the contending parties had been led by the leaders of our House of Commons, with Lord Canterbury to preside; indeed, in a much more orderly and business-like manner than since the excitement of the crisis has passed away. Unluckily their most momentous sittings were held with closed doors: newspaper reporters did not come into existence as a class, even in England, till full twenty years afterwards; and the vanity of publication had no influence in such a crisis on men whose lives and fortunes were at stake. General descriptions of the principal speakers (Adams, Lee, Dickenson, Hancock) have come |