Cicero. It is almost impossible to find in any British classic, so much verbiage and affectation, as in the pages of this celebrated writer. A thought, like a carat of gold, is hammered out into the thinnest leaf, or wire-drawn to the extreme limits of sense. Singularity and great command of language, though not of style, which is very faulty from its pomposity and affectation of ease, a formal familiarity, form the chief characteristics of this once admired philosopher. In mere music and style, Bolingbroke is his superior, but an equal lack of close and compact thinking is very palpable in his philosophical disquisitions. In miscellaneous writing, the noble authors of England have produced some of the finest specimens; the Religio Medici of Browne, the Essays of Temple, Sidney's Defence of Poesy, the prose tracts of Halifax, and the critical papers of Jeffrey. No two styles are finer of their kind than the solemn, gorgeous rhetoric of Browne, and the familiar elegance and graceful sentiment of Temple. Sidney has been aptly termed "warbler of poetic prose." Macaulay has left it as his opinion that little of the prose of his (Halifax's) time, is so well worth reading as the character of a trimmer and the anatomy of an equivalent. Jeffrey is, perhaps, the liveliest, though not the most brilliant of the Edinburgh reviewers. With all the talent they may, in the happiest instances, possess, authors of rank, hereditary or acquired, are liable to certain incidental, yet serious defects, the fruit of their social position. They are apt to become zealous partisans, sooner than cosmopolitan scholars, who have no particular social or political, landed or manufacturing interest to protect. The great man of a county must take his side: the poor author "of a toun" may be as tolerant as he pleases, and no one will quarrel with him for his indifference. The respect paid to wealth and literary pretensions united, in the person of the possessor of them, is expected to be taken, though not spoken of as a political bribe. Moreover, the noble author is almost necessarily strongly conservative, for such is the inferred tendency of caste and the prejudices of education.* This leads to a distrust and sarcastic contempt of all reforms, and a want of intelligent and generous sympathy with other classes of society and the future. The future is a great bugbear_to_these theorists: they fear it as a dark unknown, perhaps unknowable state of things. The present condition of things they make no impression upon, and seek not to ameliorate. Like unsound reasoners, they lose sight of the middle term, as it were, of their great argument. Reverencing the past, and content to take the future as it happens to turn out, they suffer the present time, the only time, to slip from their grasp, before they have sought to improve it. In their eulogium upon antiquity, they neglect what will one day be ancient, and live as it were retrospectively. They retreat, Parthian-like, in their contest with old Father Time, and advance not with the gradual progress of society. Not only the secure feeling that settled rank gives, but also moral timidity and constitutional indolence, too often obstruct the path to the temple of truth. Nor do the infatuated adherents of immobility possess arithmetic sufficient to apply the science of probabilities to existing or apprehended circumstances. The noble author, then, is best in describing manners rather than character; knows more of the world than of human nature; is better informed on points of court etiquette than able to prepare an elaborate history. Chesterfield is more in his place among literary noblemen than Clarendon. The courtly writer is educated to describe the gallantries of monarchs and the intrigues of ministers, to pen a satirical epigram or a farcical burlesque oration. Oftener a gossip than a philosopher, a Grammont than a Rochefoucauld. Cleverness, taste, graceful raillery, these are the highest aims (in general) of men of letters in this rank of society. They lead the ton and set the fashions; it is too much to ask them to write fine poems and frame systems of philosophy. To talk agreeably, make neat compliments, to preserve the air genteel, and keep down all disagreeable ideas, this is the chief part of the character of noble scholars and authors. Much more is looked for in the Great • Byron's liberal opinions were probably merely assumed for effect, or from mere discontent. He appears to have had little deep interest in the matter. A Man, a character, to an elevation with which the highest of the nobility rarely aspire to raise themselves. Walpole himself, who drew up the catalogue, and who was one of the most entertaining scandal-mongers that ever lived, was nothing else. A cold, clever, malicious wit, though able and industrious, a skilful literary artist to boot, yet from his inability to appreciate greatness no less than from his incapacity to produce any work of consequence, always a mediocre writer, in everything but gossiping letters and antiquarian anecdotes. Scorn, and that not a manly indignation, but the fruit of a hollow, contracted heart, was his only weapon. With a full knowledge (confessed in more than one place) of his defects, he at one time affected to underrate writers and literary reputation; at which period he was used to descant on the advantages of family and fortune; at another, he would pretend to despise rank, and affect a genial enthusiasm for literature and writers. His literary sins were many and seri ous. He libelled Sidney, and for the sake of the paradox flattered Richard III. He broke with Gray, and insulted Chatterton. He calumniated almost every author of eminence of his time. He spoke and wrote sneeringly of the Duchess of Newcastle and the Countess of Winchelsea. Without manly sentiment or delicacy of feeling, his judgments are often based on paradox and the perverse conclusions of a cap tious fancy. He was a fickle trifler and a hollow worldling, without a sincere admirer or true friend, the Pelham of literateurs, a literary coxcomb, a wit, too often, without wisdom. Unless urged by the strong impulse of rare genius, it appears then, that the true province of the literary nobleman should be that of friend and patron, and not rival or competitor of the author. What leisure for study and what means of aid in advancing the poor scholar, are in the possession of the wealthy lover of literature! How many hearts he may gain by his generosity, when he might convince few heads by his arguments. How much pleasanter, too, to enjoy the great authors than to add another name to the list of indifferent writers! The wealthy scribe has not the same excuses for publication as his needier brother may prefer; the latter must do what the other may avoid. It were idle to dwell on the evil accidents of a literary career; a wise man heightens the joys and rejects (by silent endurance) the sorrows of his calling, whatever it be. Fame is a noble chimera, yet fame is not the fruitful mother of exuberant authorship. Even the choicest classics (with very rare exceptions) wrote less for posterity than their own age. They knew their works would be sifted; and the few great or fine conceptions adequately executed would alone be treasured, while a large proportion of their works would be thrown into the lumber-room of obscurity. Much is written to suit time and place, and for daily bread; a moiety only of the most excellent works of the selectest authors can stand. Criticism may therefore be less clement on the productions of mere amateur authors, and a title should be no protection to a weak writer. Where rank is embellished by the charm of genius, there may we render a sincere reverence, to the man but not to the nobleman. Genius is, itself, both noble and republican; to be found in every class of society and under every possible form of government, yet most free, most magnanimous, most elevated, when discovered in close alliance with perfect liberty, in the true democratic state. We had concluded our brief survey, when we recalled to mind the capital essay of Hazlitt on the Aristocracy of Letters, altogether as different from the present sketch in its design as it is superior to it in the composition. In examining the claims of the pretenders to this rank in the literary commonwealth, he brings to light some singular revelations of characters, most literary persons must have seen and known. The classical scholars, who seem to think by mere dint of study to take precedence of original but comparatively uneducated authors; on this ground Burns would yield to Porson and Shakspeare to Bentley. The friends of great authors, who seem to think themselves implicated in the works of the great man, and who share his reputation among themselves. Indeed we have known those who considered their relationship to a fine writer was "glory enough" for them, and who refrained from making a reputa tion, however small, for themselves, because he had made one for the family. There are also the authors of great works in embryo, which never see the light, always promising, never completing. We are acquainted with a respectable professor who has been about composing the first truly philosophical history of the English Commonwealth, any time these last five years; yet we dare wager the first chapter will never be written. It appears to us, there should be even here in these democratic United States of America, an institution, in name at least, resembling the Royal Academy of Artists. We should have a "Royal Society" of Authors. Entrance into this association should be considered a badge of honor and an assurance of governmental protection. De cayed authors, great authors become unpopular by some of the sudden freaks of public favor, authors of real merit never popular, and all deserving literary men, in every department, who need not only pecuniary aid but honorary distinction to sustain them, should become members of it. It should include rich men as almoners, but they should not be mere rich men; but among the merchants a Roscoe; the physicians, a Currie; the lawyers, a Wirt; for the metaphysicians, an Abraham Tucker; for the clergy, a Channing. Such a "Royal Society" wisely conducted, and composed of the proper men, would constitute an aristocracy of genius and virtue, that the most consistent Democrat might point to with pride and respect without censure. April 3, 1843. THE DEATH LOCK. FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT. ERE the tomb close o'er thee, This one wreath of hair! Wreath like a shadow thrown All else that's loveliest will Weak as thou appearest, Thy flowing soft caress Let my fondness share; Turning this magic toy, J. J. S. THE SPIRIT OF PARTIES. BY HARRY FRANCO. THE crying evil of all free governments, or rather of all representative governments, for freedom and government are terms that do not draw perfectly well together in harness, is the Party Spirit which they necessarily engender. And yet they who most clearly discern and unfeignedly lament this evil, do themselves help to keep it alive by becoming partisans, since they must either be party men, or no men at all; for the most contemptible of all creatures is an hermaphrodite, whether in nature or in morals; and your neutral in politics is scarcely deserving of even the pitiful title of an hermaphrodite. They who have well considered that kingdoms rise or fall, and that their inhabitants are happy or miserable not so much from any local or accidental advantages or disadvantages, but according as they are well or ill governed, may well determine how far a virtuous mind may be neutral in politics." It is therefore a positive duty for every man to become a partisan, save only when acting in an executive capacity, wherein to be a partisan is to be a knave and a traitor; although it is true, beyond a question, that no reasoning and honest man can approve of all the acts and professions of any party; yet it must be, that some party will conform more nearly to his conceived rules of right than another, and to that one he should attach himself and fight under its banners. Your neutral man in politics is just the person upon whom the contempt of mankind may be heaped without fear of injustice; the saliva of an honest, free-thoughted citizen is too precious an ointment to bestow upon him; he is a good-for-nothing, and deserving of nothing; the Greeks of old were not mistaken in deriving from his case the word "idiot;" and yet such creatures go about like very pictures of complacency, and, glorying in their shame, boast that they are noparty men. They may see rogues in high places-the wicked spreading himself like a green bay-tree, and honesty and public virtue chilled to death in his shadow,--but they are unmoved by the saddening spectacle because they are no-party men. Poor, snivelling creatures! what a host of them start up in our historical recollections, who have been in all ages of the world the surest props of tyranny, and the saddest oppressors of innocence and sturdy virtue! In our day they can see nothing in politics but a brawling lawyer at a ward meeting, or a dirty-faced voter at the polls, with whose person they would not bring their superfine dresses in contact, to save their country from disgrace. We have, indeed, seen good professing Christians, men who have taken their degrees at colleges, well to do in the world, well born and respectably connected, genteelly dressed and free from debt, (and these we believe are the titles of nobility with us), who made no scruple of urging as a reason, that they absented themselves from the polls, because they were disgusted with party warfare. They cry peace! peace! when there is no peace. They shut themselves up in their own houses, and foolishly dream that the blast which levels the dwellings of others will pass harmlessly by them, because they are so quiet, and trouble themselves about nobody's business but their own. They are lineal descendants of that timid servant who wrapped his talent in a napkin, and hid it in the earth, lest he should lose it; and the reward of the timid servant will be theirs. From the foregone observations the reader may rightly conclude, though we are partisans ourselves, that party men may find favor in our sight, even though their professions be opposed to our own. But there are parties which we hold in utter dread, parties which we neither approve ourselves, nor like those who approve of them. Tea-parties we abhor! Dinner-parties may be endured. They are often of a character to win over the most ultra of party haters. The very name, indeed, of a dinner-party has in it something exceedingly agreeable, and a host of mild and pleasant images, laughing, jolly, and mirthful fancies, throng around one, at the bare mention of it. But a tea-party! Oh, it has no redeeming qualities. We firmly believe that one-half the dyspeptics in the world, if not the whole, might trace the origin of their complaints to a tea-party. In the fashionable circles of our large cities tea-parties are no longer endured; but in country towns and in rural districts, in the latter of which I live, they are held in as high esteem as ever they were since the first years of the Revolution, when tea-drinking was particularly aristocratic and toryish. The worst of tea-parties is their uniformity; there is no more variety in them than in a flock of sheep. We have been to some thousands of them in our time, in different parts of the Union, and the only difference we could ever discover in them was, that in North Carolina and Virginia they gave you hot short-cakes, and in the New England States apple-pies in their season. In the district where I now reside they give neither, but in all other things there is a wonderful similarity to all other tea-parties. The last tea-party that we attended was something more than a year past; our invitation was received and accepted by our wife, and there was no getting clear; we tried a thousand expedients, but without avail, and at last we were compelled to give in and go; although we wish it to be understood that we went, according to the fashion of the day with those who are compelled to do things against their constitutional scruples, under protest. It is bad enough, when one's daily labor is done, to dress and set off to a teaparty after dark; but to ride off in broad daylight with the sun an hour above the horizon, on such an expedition, is a thing to make a man blush. We felt as though the whole world were gazing at us, and pointing its finger at ourself and wife, as we rode through the towns of Westfield and Middle Westfield, Northfield and Middle Northfield, towards the house of Mrs. Pederson, in Swampville, by whom the party was given. It was still quite light when we arrived, and a considerable portion of the partisans were on the ground; that is, sitting in Mrs. Pederson's parlor The good lady was delighted to see us, and made a thousand tender inquiries about our health, although she had seen us but the very day before, and knew perfectly well the exact state of our bodily con dition. Mrs. Pederson wore a white muslin apron, to distinguish herself from her guests, who made their appearance in the discarded fashions of the last ten years, so that the assemblage had the jumbled up and heterogeneous aspect of a collection of oldfashioned plates, cut out of some odd volumes of a lady's magazine. Ourself and our wife enjoy the unrestrained use of our eyes, and are allowed to be quite as knowing as our neighbors in the common affairs of life, but this did not prevent each one of the assembled company from informing us in a very grave and obliging manner, that it was quite a pleasant afternoon; a fact which we could not be ignorant of, after a ride in an open waggon of eight miles and a half. But our wife received the information with great good humor, and replied to each one, "Very indeed!" as though it were a great comfort to her to confirm the intelligence; for ourself, we merely said "Yes," because it was a matter that did not admit of either dispute or amplification. The weather having been first disposed of, as though we were an assembly of almanac makers, the healths of the party were then discussed, as though we were a collection of infirmary patients; and each individual related his or her complaint with surprising particularity, and a degree of candor, which on any other subject would have been praiseworthy and delightful in the extreme. For ourself, we only acknowledged to an overpowering feeling of drowsiness, and we took our seat in a Boston rocker with the hope of enjoying a nap. But sleep was out of the case, for the ladies having dismissed the weather and their complaints, immediately took up the subject of dress, upon which they entered with such lively feelings, and made such prodigious displays of their abilities in talking about nothing, that so gentle and noise-hating a spirit as sleep was fairly put to flight, and all |