kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my | tations that a reconciliation might soon take place. thanks.

“Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and un-is wearied zeal, to preserve from breaking that fine and noble porcelain vase-the British empire; for I knew that, being once broken, the separate parts could not retain even their share of the strength and value that existed in the whole; and that a perfect reunion of those parts could scarce ever be hoped for. Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wetted my cheek, when, at your good sister's in London, you once gave me expec

About this time the Hessians, &c. had just arrived from Europe at Staten Island and New York. B. V.

the seller bestowed much or little labour upon | ders of Boston and Philadelphia, such warnit, or whether it came into his possession ings were altogether unnecessary; and he without any labour at all;-whether it be a endeavoured, therefore, with more appropridiamond, which he picked up, or a picture, at ate eloquence, to impress upon them the imwhich he had been working for years. The portance of industry, sobriety, and economy, commodity is not valued by the purchaser, and to direct their wise and humble ambition on account of the labour which is supposed to to the attainment of useful knowledge and be embodied in it, but solely on account of honourable independence. That morality, certain qualities, which he finds convenient after all, is certainly the most valuable, which or agreeable: he compares the convenience is adapted to the circumstances of the greater and delight which he expects to derive from part of mankind; and that eloquence the most this object, with the convenience and delight meritorious, that is calculated to convince and which is afforded by the things asked in ex- persuade the multitude to virtue. Nothing change for it; and if he find the former pre- can be more perfectly and beautifully adapted ponderate, he consents to the exchange, and to its object, than most of Dr. Franklin's makes a beneficial bargain. compositions of this sort. The tone of famili arity, of good-will, and homely jocularitythe plain and pointed illustrations-the short sentences, made up of short words-and the strong sense, clear information, and obvious conviction of the author himself, make most of his moral exhortations perfect models of popular eloquence; and afford the finest specimens of a style which has been but too little cultivated in a country which numbers perhaps more than half a million of readers among its tradesmen and artificers.

We have stated the case in the name of a purchaser, because, in barter, both parties are truly purchasers, and act upon the same principles; and it is easy to show, that all commerce resolves itself, ultimately, into barter. There can be no unfairness in trade, except where there is concealment on the part of the seller, either of the defects of the commodity, or of the fact that the purchaser may be supplied with it at a cheaper rate by another. It is a matter of fact, but not of morality, that the price of most commodities will be influenced by the labour employed in producing them. If they are capable of being produced in unlimited quantities, the competition of the producers will sink the price very nearly to what is necessary to maintain this labour; and the impossibility of continuing the production, without repaying that labour, will prevent it from sinking lower. The doctrine does not apply at all, to cases where the materials, or the skill necessary to work them up, are scarce in proportion to the demand. The author's speculations on the effects of paper-money, seem also to be superficial and inaccurate. Statistics had not been carefully studied in the days of his activity; and, accordingly, we meet with a good deal of loose assumption, and sweeping calculation in his writings. Yet he had a genius for exact observation, and complicated detail; and probably wanted nothing but leisure, to have made very great advances in this branch of economy. As a writer on morality and general literature, the merits of Dr. Franklin cannot be estimated properly, without taking into consideration the peculiarities that have been already alluded to in his early history and situation. He never had the benefit of any academical instruction, nor of the society of men of letters;-his style was formed entirely by his own judgment and occasional reading; and most of his moral pieces were written while he was a tradesman, addressing himself to the tradesmen of his native city. We cannot expect, therefore, either that he should write with extraordinary elegance or grace; or that he should treat of the accomplishments, follies, and occupations of polite life. He had no great occasion, as a moralist, to expose the guilt and the folly of gaming or seduction; or to point a poignant and playful ridicule against the lighter immoralities of fashionable life. To the mechanics and tra- I

In writings which possess such solid and unusual merit, it is of no great consequence that the fastidious eye of a critic can discover many blemishes. There is a good deal of vulgarity in the practical writings of Dr. Franklin; and more vulgarity than was any way necessary for the object he had in view. There is something childish, too, in some of his attempts at pleasantry; his story of the Whistle, and his Parisian letter, announcing the discovery that the sun gives light as soon as he rises, are instances of this. The soliloquy of an Ephemeris, however, is much better; and both it, and the Dialogue with the Gout, are executed with the lightness and spirit of genuine French compositions. The Speech in the Divan of Algiers, composed as a parody on those of the defenders of the slave trade, and the scriptural parable against persecution are inimitable; they have all the point and facility of the fine pleasantries of Swift and Arbuthnot, with something more of directness and apparent sincerity.

The style of his letters, in general, is excellent. They are chiefly remarkable, for great simplicity of language, admirable good sense and ingenuity, and an amiable and inoffensive cheerfulness, that is never overclouded or eclipsed. Among the most valuable of the writings that are published for the first time, in the present edition, are four letters from Dr. Franklin to Mr. Whatley, written within a few years of his death, and expressive of all that unbroken gaiety, philanthropy, and activity, which distinguish the compositions of his earlier years. We give with pleasure the following extracts.

"I am not acquainted with the saying of Alphonsus, which you allude to as a sanctification of your rigidity, in refusing to allow me the plea of old age as an excuse for my want of exactitude in correspondence. What was that saying?-You do not, it seems, feel any occasion for such an excuse, though

you are, as you say, rising seventy-five, but I am rising (perhaps more properly falling) eighty-and I leave the excuse with you till you arrive at that age; perhaps you may then be more sensible of its validity, and see fit to use it for yourself.

their way home) whether, now they had seen how much more commodiously the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not choose to remain among us their answer was, that they were pleased with having had an opportunity of seeing "I must agree with you that the gout is bad, and many fine things, but they chose to live in their own that the stone is worse. I am happy in not having country: which country, by the way, consisted of them both together; and I join in your prayer, that rock only: for the Moravians were obliged to caryou may live till you die without either. But I doubt ry earth in their ship from New York, for the purthe author of the epitaph you sent me is a little mis-pose of making there a cabbage garden!”—Vol. iii. taken, when, speaking of the world, he says, that pp. 550, 551. —he ne'er car'd a pin

What they said or may say of the mortal within.’

"You are now seventy-eight, and I am eightytwo. You tread fast upon my heels; but, though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me till I stop, which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth; and I now often hear Mr. such a one, to distinguish them from their sons, persons, whom I knew when children, called old now men grown, and in business; so that, by liv. ing twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet of the most active years of my life, employed, too, had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve in matters of the greatest importance: but whether have been doing good or mischief, is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and hope all will end well.

I

"It is so natural to wish to be well spoken of, whether alive or dead, that I imagine he could not be quite exempt from that desire; and that at least he wished to be thought a wit, or he would not have given himself the trouble of writing so good an epitaph to leave behind him."-"You see I have some reason to wish that in a future state I may not only be as well as I was, but a little better. And I hope it: for I, too, with your poet, trust in God. And when I observe, that there is great frugality as well as wisdom in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labour and materials; for, by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals, without being I at the trouble of repeated new creations: and by the natural reduction of compound substances to Be so good as to present my affectionate retheir original elements, capable of being employed spects to Dr. Rowley. I am under great obligain new compositions, he has prevented the neces tions to him, and shall write to him shortly. It sity of creating new matter; for that the earth, will be a pleasure to him to hear that my malady water, air, and perhaps fire, which being compound does not grow sensibly worse, and that is a great ed, form wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, re- point; for it has always been so tolerable, as not turn, and again become air, earth, fire and water;to prevent my enjoying the pleasures of society, I owe this in I say, that when I see nothing annihilated, and not and, being cheerful in conversation. even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the a great measure to his good counsels."-Vol. iii. annihilation of souls; or believe that he will suffer PP. 555, 556. the daily waste of millions of minds ready made "Your eyes must continue very good, since you that now exist, and put himself to the continual are able to write so small a hand without spectatrouble of making new ones. Thus finding my. cles. I cannot distinguish a letter even of large self to exist in the world, I believe I shall in some print; but am happy in the invention of double shape or other always exist. And with all the in-spectacles, which, serving for distant objects as well conveniences human life is liable to, I shall not as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as If all the other defects and inobject to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, ever they were. that the errata of the last may be corrected."-Vol. firmities of old age could be as easily and cheaply ii. pp. 546-548. remedied, it would be worth while, my friend, to live a good deal longer. But I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning. Adieu, and believe me ever, &c."-Vol. iii. pp. 544, 545.

There is something extremely amiable in old age, when thus exhibited without querulousness, discontent, or impatience, and free, at the same time, from any affected or unbecoming levity. We think there must be many more of Dr. Franklin's letters in existence, than have yet been given to the public; and from the tone and tenor of those which we have seen, we are satisfied that they would be read with general avidity and improvement.

Our constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually, and cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven, and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct. They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable preeminence than the different grains of sand in an hour-glass. Such an assembly can. not easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business, and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expenses; His account of his own life, down to the so that, having no chance of great places and enor. year 1730, has been in the hands of the pubmous salaries or pensions, as in some countries, lic since 1790. It is written with great simthere is no intriguing or bribing for elections. I plicity and liveliness, though it contains too wish Old England were as happy in its govern- many trifling details and anecdotes of obscure ment, but I do not see it. Your people, however, individuals. It affords however a striking think their constitution the best in the world, and affect to despise ours. It is comfortable to have a example of the irresistible force with which good opinion of one's self, and of every thing that talents and industry bear upwards in society; belongs to us; to think one's own religion, king, as well as an impressive illustration of the and wife, the best of all possible wives, kings, and substantial wisdom and good policy of invariareligions. I remember three Greenlanders, who ble integrity and candour. We should think had travelled two years in Europe, under the care it a very useful reading for all young persons of some Moravian missionaries, and had visited Germany, Denmark, Holland, and England: when of unconfirmed principles, who have their I asked them at Philadelphia (when they were in fortunes to make or to mend in the world.

Upon the whole, we look upon the life and | cess; and has only been found deficient in writings of Dr. Franklin as affording a striking those studies which the learned have geneillustration of the incalculable value of a rally turned from in disdain. We would not be sound and well directed understanding; and understood to say any thing in disparagement of the comparative uselessness of learning of scholarship and science; but the value and laborious accomplishments. Without the of these instruments is apt to be over-rated slightest pretensions to the character of a by their possessors; and it is a wholesome scholar or a man of science, he has extended mortification, to show them that the work the bounds of human knowledge on a variety may be done without them. We have long of subjects, which scholars and men of sci-known that their employment does not insure ence had previously investigated without suc- its success.

(September, 1816.)

The Works of JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, and Poems not hitherto published. With Notes, and a life of the Author, by WALTER SCOTT, Esq. 19 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1815.

By far the most considerable change which has taken place in the world of letters, in our days, is that by which the wits of Queen Anne's time have been gradually brought down from the supremacy which they had enjoyed, without competition, for the best part of a century. When we were at our studies, some twenty-five years ago, we can perfectly remember that every young man was set to read Pope, Swift, and Addison, as regularly as Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. All who had any tincture of letters were familiar with their writings and their history; allusions to them abounded in all popular discourses and all ambitious conversation; and they and their contemporaries were universally acknowledged as our great models of excellence, and placed without challenge at the head of our national literature. New books, even when allowed to have merit, were never thought of as fit to be placed in the same class, but were generally read and forgotten, and passed away like the transitory meteors of a lower sky; while they remained in their brightness, and were supposed to shine with a fixed and unalterable glory.

that they are declined considerably from 'the high meridian of their glory,' and may fairly be apprehended to be hastening to their setting.' Neither is it time alone that has wrought this obscuration; for the fame of Shakespeare still shines in undecaying brightness; and that of Bacon has been steadily advancing and gathering new honours during the whole period which has witnessed the rise and decline of his less vigorous successors.

There are but two possible solutions for phenomena of this sort. Our taste has either degenerated-or its old models have been fairly surpassed; and we have ceased to admire the writers of the last century, only because they are too good for us—or because they are not good enough. Now, we confess we are no believers in the absolute and permanent corruption of national taste; on the contrary, we think that it is, of all faculties, that which is most sure to advance and improve with time and experience; and that, with the exception of those great physical or political disasters which have given a check to civilization itself, there has always been a sensible progress in this particular; and that All this, however, we take it, is now pretty the general taste of every successive generawell altered; and in so far as persons of our tion is better than that of its predecessors. antiquity can judge of the training and habits There are little capricious fluctuations, no of the rising generation, those celebrated doubt, and fits of foolish admiration or fastiwriters no longer form the manual of our studiousness, which cannot be so easily accountdious youth, or enter necessarily into the institution of a liberal education. Their names, indeed, are still familiar to our ears; but their writings no longer solicit our habitual notice, and their subjects begin already to fade from our recollection. Their high privilieges and proud distinctions, at any rate, have evidently passed into other hands. It is no longer to them that the ambitious look up with envy, or the humble with admiration; nor is it in their pages that the pretenders to wit and eloquence now search for allusions that are sure to captivate, and illustrations that cannot be mistaken. In this decay of their reputation they have few advocates, and no imitators: and from a comparison of many observations, it seems to be clearly ascertained,

ed for: but the great movements are all progressive: and though the progress consists at one time in withholding toleration from gross faults, and at another in giving their high prerogative to great beauties, this alternation has no tendency to obstruct the general advance; but, on the contrary, is the best and the safest course in which it can be conducted.

We are of opinion, then, that the writers who adorned the beginning of the last century have been eclipsed by those of our own time; and that they have no chance of ever regaining the supremacy in which they have thus been supplanted. There is not, however, in our judgment, any thing very stupendous in this triumph of our contemporaries; and

the greater wonder with us, is, that it was so beth, it received a copious infusion of classical long delayed, and left for them to achieve. images and ideas: but it was still intrinsically For the truth is, that the writers of the former romantic-serious-and even somewhat lofty age had not a great deal more than their judg- and enthusiastic. Authors were then so few ment and industry to stand on; and were in number, that they were looked upon with always much more remarkable for the few- a sort of veneration, and considered as a kind ness of their faults than the greatness of their of inspired persons; at least they were not beauties. Their laurels were won much more yet so numerous, as to be obliged to abuse by good conduct and discipline, than by en- each other, in order to obtain a share of disterprising boldness or native force;-nor can tinction for themselves;-and they neither it be regarded as any very great merit in those affected a tone of derision in their writings, who had so little of the inspiration of genius, nor wrote in fear of derision from others. to have steered clear of the dangers to which They were filled with their subjects, and dealt that inspiration is liable. Speaking generally with them fearlessly in their own way; and of that generation of authors, it may be said the stamp of originality, force, and freedom, that, as poets, they had no force or greatness is consequently upon almost all their producof fancy-no pathos, and no enthusiasm ;- tions. In the reign of James I., our literature, and, as philosophers, no comprehensiveness, with some few exceptions, touching rather depth, or originality. They are sagacious, no the form than the substance of its merits, apdoubt, neat, clear, and reasonable; but for pears to us to have reached the greatest perthe most part cold, timid, and superficial. fection to which it has yet attained; though They never meddle with the great scenes of it would probably have advanced still farther nature, or the great passions of man; but in the succeeding reign, had not the great nacontent themselves with just and sarcastic tional dissensions which then arose, turned representations of city life, and of the paltry the talent and energy of the people into other passions and meaner vices that are bred in channels-first, to the assertion of their civil that lower element. Their chief care is to rights, and afterwards to the discussion of avoid being ridiculous in the eyes of the their religious interests. The graces of literawitty, and above all to eschew the ridicule ture suffered of course in those fierce contenof excessive sensibility or enthusiasm-to be tions; and a deeper shade of austerity was at once witty and rational themselves, with thrown upon the intellectual character of the as good a grace as possible; but to give their nation. Her genius, however, though less capcountenance to no wisdom, no fancy, and no tivating and adorned than in the happier days morality, which passes the standards current which preceded, was still active, fruitful, and in good company. Their inspiration, accord- commanding; and the period of the civil wars, ingly, is little more than a sprightly sort of besides the mighty minds that guided the good sense; and they have scarcely any in- public councils, and were absorbed in public vention but what is subservient to the pur- cares, produced the giant powers of Taylor, poses of derision and satire. Little gleams and Hobbes, and Barrow-the_muse of Milof pleasantry, and sparkles of wit, glitter ton-the learning of Coke-and the ingenuity through their compositions; but no glow of of Cowley. 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 maintained themselves, for near a century, at the head of the literature of a country that had previously produced a Shakespeare, 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 the 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 Eliza

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 extravagancies 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 op