titled to be called poetry, than a bale of canvas and a box of colors are to be called a painting.

Logicians may reason about abstractions, but the great mass of mankind can never feel an interest in them. They must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude, in all ages and nations, to idolatry, can be explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is every reason to believe, worshipped an invisible Deity. But the necessity of having something more definite to adore, produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. The history of the Jews is the record of a continual struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world— while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte— operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception; but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the Cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty

legions, were humbled in the dust!* Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principles which had assisted it began to corrupt. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against these feelings; but never with more than apparent and partial success. The men who demolished the images in cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must be embodied before they can excite strong public feeling. The multitude is more easily interest

* The members of the compound series contained in this sentence, should be thus classified and inflected:

It was before Deity, embodied in a human form walking among men partaking of their infirmities leaning on their bosoms weeping over their graves slumbering in the manger bleeding on the crossand the doubts of the

that the prejudices of the synagogue academy and the pride of the portico

lictor and the swords of thirty legions dust.

and the fasces of the

were humbled in the

ed for the most unmeaning badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the most important principle.

From these considerations, we infer, that no poet who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of which Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure.-Macauley.

EVIDENCE AND PRECEDENTS IN LAW.

BEFORE you can adjudge a fact, you must believe it ;-not suspect it, or imagine it, or fancy it,—but believe it: and it is impossible to impress the human mind with such a reasonable and certain belief, as is necessary to be impressed, before a Christian man can adjudge his neighbor to the smallest penalty, much less to the pains of death, without having such evidence as a reasonable mind will accept of as the infallible test of truth. And what is that evidence ?Neither more nor less than that which the Constitution has established in the courts for the general administration of justice: namely, that the evidence convince the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the criminal intention, constituting the crime, existed in the mind of the man upon trial, and was the mainspring of his conduct. The rules of evidence, as they are settled by law, and adopted in its general administration, are not to be overruled or tampered with. They are founded in the charities of religion-in the philosophy of nature-in the truths of history-and in the experience of common life; and whoever ventures

rashly to depart from them, let him remember that it will be meted to him in the same measure, and that both God and man will judge him accordingly.

These are arguments addressed to your reasons and your consciences; not to be shaken in upright minds by any precedent,-for no precedents can sanctify injustice: if they could, every human right would long ago have been extinct upon the earth. If the State Trials, in bad times, are to be searched for precedents, what murders may you not commit-what law of humanity may you not trample upon-what rule of justice may you not violate-and what maxim of wise policy may you not abrogate and confound? If precedents in bad times are to be implicitly followed, why should we have heard any evidence at all? You might have convicted without any evidence; for many have been so convicted-and, in this manner, murdered-even by acts of Parliament. If precedents in bad times are to be followed, why should the Lords and Commons have investigated these charges, and the Crown have put them into this course of judicial trial?-since, without such a trial, and even after an acquittal upon one, they might have attainted all the prisoners by act of Parliament:-they did so in the case of Lord Strafford.

There are precedents, therefore, for all such things; but such precedents as could not for a moment survive the times of madness and distraction which gave them birth; but which, as soon as the spurs of the occasions were blunted, were repealed and execrated even by Parliaments which (little as I may think of

the present) ought not be compared with it: Parliaments-sitting in the darkness of former times-in the night of freedom-before the principles of government were developed, and before the constitution became fixed. The last of these precedents, and all the proceedings upon it, were ordered to be taken off the file and burnt, to the intent that the same might no longer be visible to after-ages; an order dictated, no doubt, by a pious tenderness for national honor, and meant as a charitable covering for the crimes of our fathers. But it was a sin against posterity-it was a treason against society; for, instead of commanding them to be burnt, they should rather have directed them to be blazoned in large letters upon the walls of our Courts of Justice, that, like the characters deciphered by the prophet of God to the Eastern tyrant, they might enlarge and blacken in your sights, to terrify you from acts of injustice.-Erskine.

SKETCH OF LORD CHATHAM'S ADMINISTRATION. ANOTHER Scene was opened, and other actors appeared upon the stage. The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham-a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may truly be called,

Clarum et venerabile nomen

Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.

Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited