pronouncing the curse. The artist seems to have here lost much of his dignity. He has introduced the fable of Charon and his boat-a license as intolerable in painting as it would be in preaching. But the details of execution are so admirable, that one would hardly consent to its omission, though it does thus offend theological propriety.

The fatal skiff is represented as just touching the shore of hell, and the old ferryman, with upraised oar, is driving before him the terrified and crouching crowd.

Portitor has horrendas aquas et flumina servat
Terribili squalore Charon: cui plurima mento
Canities inculta jacet, stant lumina flammâ.

Some stand motionless, aghast, horror-struck at the sight before them; others wring their hands in despair. Along the bank the infernal fiends are gathering and laying hold of their victims before the boat has fairly struck. Their hideous visages are lighting up with glee; their huge protruding eyes gloat over this new prey. One young man, of athletic form, is stepping over the gunwale, and with clenched fists awaits the coming of a demon, Beside him, is a poor wretch who seeks to escape by drawing back into the boat. But a fiend, with vulture claws, and with wings broad and black and ribbed like a gigantic vampire's, has clutched his legs, and drawing one over each shoulder, prepares to drag him then.ce. The miserable man seizes the boat's side, and the fiend, enraged at his resistance, buries his white tusks in the victim's thick, trembling calf.

The mind that can contemplate this grand masterpiece unmoved -nay, not overwhelmed-is lamentably destitute of all Christian, not to mention artistic, sensibility. An American traveller not long since gave his published opinion, declaring the whole composition, an irregular, unintelligible mass.

I thought when reading that, of Chateaubrand's remark on the infidel. "The heavens which declare to all men the glory of God, and whose line is gone out through all the earth, say nothing to the atheist. Happily, it is not becase the stars are dumb, but that the atheists ars deaf."

It is doubtless true, that this magnificent work is by no means free from artistic blemishes-errors of conception, as well as of execution. The episode of Charon, mentioned above, impairs very considerably the dignity of the general thought. And again, while a most masterly command of attitude is evinced in the disposition of the figures, there is too indiscriminate and prodigal a display of "anatomy." In this last department of his art, Angelo was especially profound. But in his application of it to drawing, he seemed to forget the proprieties. In his pictures, the infant and the woman are represented with a muscular developement almost and sometimes fully equal to that of the bearded man. And even in the drawing of the full-grown figure, a certain exaggeration is

instantly noticed, by the most unpractised eye. It is utterly unaccountable how Angelo fell into so obvious a fault.

But this picture appeals to a higher faculty in man than his intellectual taste. It addresses itself to his heart; and with an eloquence too deep for vocal utterance. Speech, says Carlyle, is great-but silence is greater. What transcendent eloquence does that mute scene breathe forth! It seems as if the angel of the Apocalypse had thundered to its author as to him at Patmos; "Write!" and then rending the awful veil, bid him gaze on "the things which shall be hereafter."

The last afternoon that I spent in the Sistine Chapel was the last but one of my sojourn in Rome. I visited it alone. The custode had long before gone down, tired I suppose, of waiting for my departure and his accustomed fee; and only a solitary artist remained, who was copying a picture beyond the screen. The light from the high windows fell fainter and fainter, and the gigantic figures of the Judgment, like spirits of a midnight vision, were fading gently from before me, and blending their outline with the twilight air.

I communed with my spirit and

grew "afraid."

"Stand still, my soul! In the silent dark

I would question thee;

Alone in the shadow drear and stark,

With God and me.

What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth and ease,

Or heaping up dust from year to year?
'Nay, none of these.'

Speak, soul, aright, in His holy sight,
Whose eye looks still

And steadily on thee, through the night.
To do His will.'

What hast thou done, O soul of mine,
That thou tremblest so?

Hast thou wrought His task and kept the line
He bade thee go?

Summon thy sunshine bravery back,

O, wretched sprite!

Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black
Abysmal night.

Now, standing apart with God and me,

Thou art weakness all,

Gazing vainly after the things to be,

Through death's dread wall.

But never for this, never for this,

Was thy being lent,

For the craven's fear is but selfishness,
Like his merriment.

Know well, my soul, God's hand controls
Whate'er thou fearest.

Round Him, in calmest music rolls
Whate'er thou hearest.

What to thee is shadow, to Him is day,
And the end, He knoweth ;

And not on a blind and aimless way
The spirit goeth.

Man sees no future-a phantom show
Is alone before him;

Past time is dead and the grasses grow
And the flowers bloom o'er him.

The Present, the Present is all thou hast
For thy sure possessing.

Like the patriarch's angel, hold him fast
Till he give his blessing!"

Albany, December 1847.

POLITICAL TENDENCIES.

The tendency of our politics in later years has been uniformly to radicalism. In this mad excitement after change, this inclination to uproot old forms and established institutions merely because they are old and established, and to adopt others of doubtful propriety both in theory and practice, because they impose by their novelty, both the great political parties of the day are alike engaged. With them there is no conservatism. The ultra-radical alone is regarded. The ultra-radical alone can hope to succeed. It has been considered heretofore that the politics of the day embodied both these important principles and that they operated upon each other as mutual and important checks-that while the one was the party of progress, the party sometimes of great and beneficial reforms; the other was the conservator of whatever is good in the experience of the past and the protection from whatever is dangerous in the experiment of the future. But the action of political parties of late would seem to indicate that they have veered from their ancient and separate moorings and are together moving down the turbulent waters of change. The tendency of all legislation is to weaken and paralize the Executive arm and to strengthen, in exactly the same proportion the powers and the privileges of the people. It appears to be forgotten that there is such a thing as giving the people too much power-that there is an anarchy more terrible than despotism itself-that every encroachment upon the

Executive arm is a tendency to anarchy and what is a matter of inconceivable importance can never be retraced. Give the people power, and they will never consent to its abridgment. There is an intoxication of power more controlling than the delirium of the bowl and which like the charmed influence of the viper captivates but to destroy.

Let us remember then that every unjust encroachment upon the solidity of the state is an approximation to anarchy; let us not be jealous of authority, for the tyrant can never be tolerated here: the fearless and independent spirit of the people can never brook his oppression. But if he could, let us prefer the tyranny of a man to the tyranny of a mob; let us prefer despotism to anarchy. But to arrive at a happy medium between the two, to enjoy the most perfect freedom consistent with a state of society and the welfare of its members, let us remember this truth that the existence of authority somewhere, is as essential to the enjoy ment of liberty as liberty is to the enjoyment of individual rights or of national prosperity.

The history of all previous confederacies proves the fact that there is a greater tendency to anarchy among their members than to tyranny in their head. The association of the Grecian States in the Amphyctionic council furnishes an instructive, though incomplete analogy to the American Union. They declared war for mutual defence, arbitrated between their members (which were independent sovereignties) admitted new states, preserved and protected their religion and guarded the immense riches of the Temple of Delphos. Though in theory this apparatus would seem to possess ample powers, such did not prove experimentally to be the case. The appointment of deputies by the cities in their political capacities and the exercise of authority over them as such, resulted eventually in the disorders, the interference of foreign powers, the tyranny of the stronger over the weaker, the anarchy and destruction of this renowned confederacy. This it was that made Athens, Lacedæmon and Thebes the arbiters and tyrants of Greece. When at war with the Persians and Macedonians the Amphyctions were distracted among themselves, divided their energies in the field, and were convulsed with vicissitudes at home. Then Athens and Sparta inflated by their former victories became rivals and enemies, involved themselves by their mutual hatreds and jealousies in the Pelloponesian war, and thus did themselves infinitely more injury than all the armies of Xerxes.

The same fact is observable in the history of the Achæan league, the Germanic States, the United Netherlands and the Scottish Clans.

We have said that the tendency of modern legislation was to weaken the Executive arm and to strengthen the people. Such has been its uniform course.

We have taken from the Governor his power of appointment, and abolished his patronage and given them both to the people.

We have removed, one after another, nearly every restraint upon personal liberty except for conviction of crime. We have abolished laws of primary importance, instituted others of doubtful utility and provided us new forms for the election of officers for the execution of those laws. We have shortened the terms of public officers, diminished their salaries, and placed them more immediately before, and more immediately responsible to their constituents. We have established universal suffrage and dispensed with all moral, all property, all intellectual qualifications. Here then our government, and particularly the government of New York as it exists under the new constitution, is the most popular and republican the world has ever seen. It has no parallel, either among the turbulent democracies of the ancients or all the republics that ever rose, flourished or fell. It is a government that emanates purely and entirely from the people, that knows no sovereign but that people's will, and vibrates to its slightest impulse. It exhibits the highest appreciation of the people, that their legislators have reposed such confidence in their purity and intelligence; and the responsibility that rests upon them to use this delicate and sensitive instrument aright is vast and controlling. It should awaken

in the public mind, a determination to improve in all the essential elements of national elevation, that we may become in fact a free people, worthy of a free constitution.

But while we have thus loosened the restraints upon personal liberty and enlarged our political privileges, we have exposed ourselves to influences that would seem to require that those restraints should be strengthened rather than weakened, as a necessary safeguard to the enjoyment of either.

pre.

Among these, and the most remarkable circumstance of the sent age, is the influence of emigration. The foreigner is changing every day, the aspect of our social and political condition. The inhabitants of every European nation, from Norway to the Mediterranean, are landing every day upon our shores, filling the Atlantic states, traversing the great lakes, penetrating the western forests, building cities and establishing municipal regulations. They come in numbers unparalleled in the history of the world. A combination of causes sends them here. They come from love of liberty, from love of adventure, from ambition, from avarice, from necessity. They come, the sworn dominions of the despot. They come too often from the poor houses, and prisons of the old world. The educated, the ignorant, the industrious, the idle, the virtuous, the vicious, the exile and the refugee come, bringing with them the prejudices of birth, exercising insensibly but powerfully an influence upon the opinions and morals of their neighbors, the customs, the laws and the administration of the country. These are the people who are to become the electors of our future rulers. They are already a large and growing party. They adhere with singular pertinacity to certain political tenets, some of them embracing "repudiation others anarchical principles" and all