no-nothing more than a bonfire. See where the lambent flame "shoots from the hearth up-Fire! tis fire!!" But stay, brothers! "spare-oh! spare” this mournful ballad "deal gently with the poet's heart," for in sooth it is a tender one. "Sweet reader! let us weep!"

I hate to die-or else I'd go

And starve in some old cave,
Without a crum to eat-or oh!
I'd drown me in the wave!

Or else-perhaps !-I'd hang me up

On some old birchen tree,

Where all the winds should come and make

Their music unto me.

Why our pathetic bard should mention the music of the winds, which his lifeless body could neither hear nor enjoy, is, we confess, far beyond the sobriety of our imaginings; but that he has some genius no one who has read the first verse can reasonably deny. "Without a crum to eat,” is truly an expression that does honor both to his head as a poet and his heart as a man. We believe the following epitaph to have been penned by the same prolific author :

ON ONE WHO SOLD EARTHEN WARES.

Now dust to kindred dust again,

Our man of wares is gone;
The potter's clay he sold to men

To death he gave his own.

Who can doubt his genius! We would only say to him, in the words of Thalaba to the Arabian maid, " sail on, in Alla's name." Yes! sweet poet, "sail on!" and should'st thou meet the "brass-nosed ship" of thy sometime critic, hoist thine intellectual colors, and give him—not a "crum to eat," nor a bone to quell his critical snarling-no! nothing like it, but give him that sturdy broadside from Shakspeare

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.-

Now I, perchance, shall put an antic disposition on."

Reader, we love
Keep a mild eye

This is the very way to meet the critic, and "by opposing, and him." But we must bid the author good bye, and turn to the reader. thee, but in spite of love exhausted nature bids us leave thee. on our magazine, nor ever forget that beautiful, yet fearful line in Virgil's Pollio, "Occidet serpens."

HOWEVER Skillfully any form of government may be adapted to the promotion of a people's welfare, their happiness must still, in a great measure, depend upon those who are to discharge the functions of that government. The most ingeniously contrived machine becomes useless or even dangerous when intrusted to unskillful hands; and the wisest laws, and the most harmonious systems of policy, are unable to preserve and defend a nation, whose rulers are unworthy of the trust reposed in them. Ancient Rome perished, not for want of an efficient government, or a correct system of jurisprudence. By the virtue of her princes she had arisen; by their vice she fell. If then the fate of a people depends as much, at least, on the character of their statesmen as on the nature of their institutions, of what paramount importance is it that those statesmen should be worthy; that they should be men of principle and integrity.

But who is the worthy and who the unworthy statesman? By what criterion shall we distinguish the real from the pseudo patriot? Shall we judge of the politician's merits by the sentiments which he professes and the party to which he attaches himself? By no means: for the experience of ages teaches us that hypocrisy is no where more common than in political life; that the most selfish demagogues have ever pretended to be actuated by patriotic motives; that those who have been apparently the warmest friends of freedom, have proved at last the most tyrannical usurpers. Or shall we determine his worth by his popularity and his political success? Such a conclusion would be equally erroneous; for the immediate judgment of the people has been too often convicted of fallibility to be relied on with certainty. The popular prejudices of the day may, for a time, transform the demagogue into a patriot, and the patriot into a traitor. The viper may crawl to the summit of that tree which the lion is unable to climb.

How then must we judge? We must look at the stateman's actions, and the effects of those actions on his country's welfare; for though men may, and do dissemble, facts can never lie. Above all, we must look at his private character; for it should never be forgotten, that the morals of the statesman depend upon those of the individual; that he who is a bad citizen can never be a good public officer; that he who would be a ruler over his country, must first be her faithful servant.

He, therefore, and he only, is entitled to the name of the patriot statesman, who unites public ability with private integrity; and such a man was WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER.

The distinguished statesman, whose character we have now to consider, derived none of his reputation from adventitious circumstances. He lived not during one of those periods (not uncommon in the history of man) when genius shines forth with greater brilliancy by reason of the thick darkness which surrounds it, and the path to eminence lies open to the first master spirit that may arise to pursue it. His age was emphatically an age of great men. He was brought into contact with some of the most powerful minds that the world ever produced. He was obliged to struggle against a combination of talent seldom equalled in the annals of political life, with no other resources than his own abilities, and these, it must be confessed, he found amply sufficient. Few statesmen ever passed through greater trials or more critical situations; yet with an unconquerable firmness and decision of character, he sustained them all triumphantly.

On the private character of Pitt, the shadow of suspicion never rested. He was a good citizen in every sense of the term. And here he had a great advantage over most of the prominent men of his day. He did not, like Fox or Sheridan, eulogize virtues which he never practised, and descant upon the obligations of temperance and honesty, while the inside of his mansion rëechoed to the shouts of midnight revelry, and its outside was besieged by an army of importunate creditors. He was, it is true, assailed with sneers and reproaches, but not by the friends of morality. The influence of his more agreeable, but less scrupulous rivals, had rendered virtue so unpopular, that many inveighed against his purity, as if it arose from coldness and fastidiousness. The censure of such men is indeed the highest praise.

It might naturally be expected that a man whose private life was regulated by the strictest rules of propriety, would not be wanting in public integrity; and accordingly we find that one of the great characteristics of Pitt's whole political career was consistency. Not that soi-disant consistency, unfortunately but too common among us, which attaches itself to the skirts of a party, and blunders on, right or wrong, in the support of measures which others have made for it; but that lofty fixedness of

principle which marks the truly great man, who having calmly and deliberately decided upon that course of policy which his country's interests demand that he should pursue, follows it out with unflinching perseverance, and strong in his own rectitude, still pursues the even tenor of his way," heedless of the clamors of those petty spirits who can neither know nor appreciate his virtues. How signally was this consistency displayed in his conduct at the time of the formation of the celebrated coalition! While Fox, in his eager aspirings after power, joined himself in the closest alliance with the man whom he had so bitterly opposed, Pitt steadily refused to compromise the principles which he had once adopted. And it was the consciousness of this integrity which sustained him when he seemed on the point of being crushed by the great power of his adversaries, and which carried him triumphantly through the contest.

Another characteristic, the great characteristic indeed of William Pitt's policy, was his anxious care to preserve inviolate the balance of power between the several departments of government; an object of the utmost importance in such a country as England, where, on the one hand, licentiousness, in the garb of liberty, and on the other, despotism, under the name of conservatism, are ever striving to make encroachments. We see this anxiety displayed in a number of instances, but more particularly in two, which, from their importance, demand a brief examination.

The first of these was his opposition to Fox's East India Bill, a measure which the coalition party had ingeniously framed so as to conceal, under the appearance of philanthropy, the most grasping plans of self-aggrandizement. Its ostensible object was to crush an odious and tyrannical monopoly, and to protect the unfortunate Hindoos from extortion and oppression. But beneath this specious exterior was concealed a plan to concentrate in the hands of Fox and his associates, a power so enormous that it would have rendered them absolutely independent of the throne. A more embarrassing dilemma could scarcely have been devised, since if Pitt opposed the bill, his motives could be misrepresented with the greatest facility, and he was sure to be denounced as the friend of avarice and cruelty; if, on the other hand, he suffered it to be passed, his opponents would be able to rule over the king and the country with almost despotic sway; for the whole patronage of India, placed at the disposal of a few men, could not but have given them an irresistible influence. His choice, however, was soon made. Like the Grecian statesman, he would rather be just than appear so. He opposed the bill with all his might, and fortunately for his country, his efforts were successful.

This time the throne had been assailed. On a subsequent occasion, the rights of Parliament were invaded. We allude to the regency question during the insanity of George III. Here his great rival, Fox, with strange inconsistency, abandoned those principles which it was his pride to profess, and virtually revived the old doctrine of the divine right of kings, which had justly become almost as obsolete as it was contemptible. Pitt, on the other hand, resolutely asserted the rights of Parliament, insisting, that as all rulers ultimately derived their power from the people, to the people alone, through their legal representatives, it appertained to decide in cases where the constitution had made no express provision.

But William Pitt has been stigmatized as the enemy of liberty. When did he manifest this enmity? Was it when, at the very commencement of his political career, he was the strenuous advocate of reform? Was it when he brought forward his own East India Bill, which contained numerous provisions for the relief of the suffering Hindoos? Was it when he poured out the full torrent of his indignant eloquence against the African slave trade, and uplifted his mighty voice in behalf of suffering humanity? No, but he was hostile to the French Revolution and its supporters in England; he was the uncompromising opponent of the Directory and of Bonaparte; and therefore it is said he was an enemy to liberal principles.

To determine the propriety or impropriety of Pitt's conduct in this case, it will be necessary to inquire, first, whether the interference of France in the concerns of England was justifiable, and secondly, whether, if justifiable and successful, it would have been beneficial.

The interference of one nation in the concerns of another, like that of an individual in the affairs of his neighbor, is a very delicate step, and should never be taken but for the strongest reasons. If a people's allies are unjustly attacked, it is doubtless. their duty to succor them. If colonies, oppressed by the mother country, take up arms in defense of their rights, a foreign power may with propriety assist them. If one nation is distracted by a civil war, and another has good grounds to suppose that the success of one of the contending parties would be both just and beneficial, she has, perhaps, a right to aid that party. But what

* Lord Brougham censures Pitt severely because he suffered his colleagues, and even his underlings in office, to oppose the abolition of the slave trade; i. e. because he permitted those whom he might have constrained to do as he pleased, to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of action. And this is, as Brougham himself confesses, the most weighty charge he can bring against William Pitt.— Vide, the article on "Public Characters" in the October No. of the Edinburgh Review.