be approaching by a portion of the company, than a rush was made from within, the whole contents of the trays were seized in transitu, by a sort of coup de main; and the bearers (having thus rapidly achieved the distribution of their refreshments) had nothing for it but to return for a fresh supply. This was brought and quite as compendiously despatched, and at length it became apparent that without resorting to some extraordinary measures, it would be impossible to accomplish the intended voyage, and the more respectable part of the company would be suffered to depart with dry palates, in utter ignorance of the extent of the hospitality to which they were indebted.

"The butler, however, was an Irishman; and in order to baffle further attempts at intercepting the supplies, had recourse to an expedient marked by all the ingenuity of his countrymen. He procured an escort, armed them with sticks; and on his next advance these men kept flourishing their shillelahs around the trays with such alarming vehemence, that the predatory horde, who anticipated a repetition of their plunder, were scared from their prey, and amid a scene of execrations and laughter, the refreshments, thus guarded, accomplished their journey to the saloon in safety!"

This having happened, it would seem that there is nothing to prevent it from happening again. Still it would be unfair to suppose that all the President's levees are of this character. Mr. Dickens gives a much more favourable description of one of President Tyler's levees which he attended.

"The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the other chambers on the groundfloor were crowded to excess. The company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it comprehended persons of very many grades and classes; nor was

there any great display of costly attire; indeed some of the costumes may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough. But the decorum and propriety of behaviour which prevailed were unbroken by any rude or disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any orders or tickets, to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part of the institution, and was responsible for its preserving a becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage."

And of President Jackson's levee, above referred to, Capt. Hamilton says, " During my stay at Washington, I never heard it mentioned without an expression of indignant feeling on the part of the ladies at the circumstances I have narrated. Yet the evil, whatever be its extent, is in truth the necessary result of a form of government essentially democratic."

The American ladies were perfectly right in their judgment, and we may congratulate ourselves that the London sweeps and bakers, and the labourers on railways, are not permitted to rush into the levees and drawing-rooms at St. James's, covered with soot, meal, and mud; and that the Queen is guarded from intrusion to which no good subject, whatever be his station, would wish to expose her Majesty. Such familiarity may produce contempt, and contempt for persons in authority is the first step to disobedience and rebellion. To ascribe undue importance to forms and ceremonies is weak and childish; to dispense with them altogether is unwise. In manners, there is the greatest possible difference between a graceful, and a rude simplicity.

That decent dignity with which our judges proceed to the assize to administer justice is seemly and becoming the occasion. If we were to see people laughing at a funeral, we should be disgusted with their misbehaviour; and where juries deliver a solemn ver

dict affecting property, liberty, or life, while they are almost unanimously chewing bread and cheese, not only is there a breach of good manners, but there is danger that persons in authority and that justice herself will be less reverenced.

True politeness is not confined to any station. It may be seen in the peasant and the artizan, and it may be wanting in the hollow-hearted courtier, or the coxcomb who affects the manners of the great; but it is always inconsistent with coarse and presumptuous familiarity. In the happiest families, parents know how to love their children with the warmest affection; but without losing respect and authority. And the most intimate friendship cannot subsist without a regard to the same rules.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,

And proves, by thumps upon your back,
How he esteems your merit,

Is such a friend, -that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed,
To pardon or to bear it.

Good manners, in short, are the ornament and defence of good morals. Without them, virtue herself would be less lovely and secure. Infinite wisdom has condescended even in this to be our Teacher. The precept, Fear God, is combined with the commands, Honour all men,-Honour the King. We are not only enjoined to be pitiful, but also to be courteous.

The American boys are republicans from early childhood, and experiments have actually been made to ascertain how far a strictly republican government would be admissible in schools.* The school were

* "Such a method was adopted at an institution for boys, denominated the Gardiner Lyceum, in the state of Maine. Such institutions have succeeded for a time, when the prin

allowed to elect, by universal suffrage, eight or ten boys, who were invested with the legislative power, and held their deliberations once a week, for the management of scholastic affairs. The master and his assistants had only a veto or negative on their proceedings. They could pardon, but not punish. In this young republic, it soon appeared that the legislative power had a very strong tendency to absorb the executive;—that the master, like the American President, was not the master; and that the people and their representatives in the legislature, prevented him from wielding the schoolmaster's rod of empire with such vigour, as was necessary to produce a salutary and lasting impression. Whatever might have been the proficiency of the scholars in democratical science, and in those accomplishments that are best learned during holidays and half holidays, somehow they did not make equal progress in grammatical, arithmetical, geographical, and mathematical learning. And so it was found expedient to change the form of government, into one more nearly resembling that which has been most approved, since the days of Solomon.*

From our rapid survey of the political institutions of two great nations, descended from the same ancestry, but placed in different hemispheres, it is evident that both enjoy a large measure of freedom and felicity, the

cipal has possessed a sufficient share of generalship to enable him really to manage the institution himself, while the power has been left nominally in the hands of the boys. Should this not be the case, as Mr. Abbott judiciously remarks, and should the institution actually be surrendered into the hands of the boys, things must be on a very unstable footing. And accordingly even in republican America, wherever such a plan has been adopted, it has in every instance been abandoned, and a more aristocratic system established in its ."-CASWALL'S America, 1839.

room.

* Prov. xxii. and xxiii.

one under a limited monarchy, the other as a republic. They have some advantages in common, and some that are peculiar to each.

Hence we may learn to distrust those cold and severe dogmatists, who undertake to calculate and adjust human liberty and happiness according to one fixed scale for every meridian of the globe, regardless of local and national peculiarities, customs, manners, genius, sentiment, the graces and the proprieties of life. They reason as if they would not hesitate to uproot and level the old societies, in order to carry out their sweeping theory of democracy all over the world.*

But in England we enjoy, as the Americans also do, the right of administering our own local affairs; the power of going where we please, and doing what is lawful, untroubled by spies and arbitrary interference. Under those admirable laws and judicial institutions of England which the Americans have wisely adopted, our persons and property, our liberty and lives are safe. The rights of conscience are respected, and all sects are tolerated, except atheists and blasphemers,—the enemies of all law and all religion. Here then is rational practical freedom, in those things that chiefly concern our welfare, and come home to our business and bosoms.

In comparing our constitution with that of the great modern republic, it was proved that the British empire could not exist as a democracy; nor retain its own great and signal advantages, grasping at the same time those which the Americans possess under very different circumstances and institutions. Having considered the probable effect of the introduction of the ballot, universal suffrage, annual parliaments, of the abolition of our hereditary peerage and hereditary mo

* See page 62.