caught." A great ruffian, with a mob at his back, triumphs an obscure, petty-fogging villain is executed. The laws of a state are unavailable to an individual-he avenges himself; and if he be a sneaking fellow who admits his guilt, he is taken at his word; but if he be a daring or plausible ruffian, who excites his friends and defies his enemies, he may remain unmolested, unless he should judge it more prudent to retire. But these delinquents are sometimes caught, when their offences outrage the feelings of the violent, or have been levelled against the popular. Were the laws fearlessly and impartially executed, acts of violence would rapidly diminish; but so long as the people are stronger than the police, and prefer keeping the laws in their own hands, or under their own direction-while the police are their creatures and coadjutors, such a consummation is not to be expected. From these remarks, I of course exempt the ancient and populous cities in a considerable degree, where more powerful mobs are requisite to beard the laws, as has lately appeared in Boston and Baltimore; but take a population of a million, in any part of the southern states, and I am satisfied that more murders are perpetrated within that population, than in the whole of the British dominions in Europe. I believe I have shown that anarchy, corruption, and their follower, despotism, are not diminishing, but perhaps increasing in the United States; nor can I perceive any power or safety-valve to check their progress, The senate and the supreme court are intended for that purpose, but they can do little, for the populace are unquestionably the ultimate tribunal, When the senate issued a protest, justly in my opinion, against an act of the execu tive, they were schooled by the President and denounced by his party, and are gradually undergoing a process by filling vacancies, to render them more obedient to their masters. Unlimited suffrage is the bane of America, which, though it has not yet perpetrated its utmost evils, is tending towards them, but may tediously drag along its poisonous course, because the tyranny of a mob never reaches its highest mark till want of employment and want of bread give leisure and desperation. In such a state, unless poverty should destroy independence, the probable course would be despotism, tyranny, revolution, anarchy, and reform. But I do not pretend to a gift of prophecy, for we cannot judge by any other government, ancient or modern, how such a novel and complicated machinery shall continue to work-whether it will get out of order, go to pieces, or be remodelled. While Europeans divide their time between their own business, and domestic and social enjoyments, leaving but a remnant for politics, the democrats of America devote theirs to a constant exertion to improve their fortune, and to increase the strength of their party-hasty and impatient in their meals, in their family intercourse, and in their convivial pleasures. Meetings, committees, and delegations are in ceaseless operation, whilst every coffee-house, grog-shop, or store, nightly supply arenas for disputation-the friendly quid alone seems to promote silence and repose. Still, with all these evils, they have cheap government, they have no sinecurists, pensioners, or useless drones; no wealthy and powerful endowments to provide for the younger sons of senators and legislators; no families, basking for centuries on rotten boroughs, and wondering that the excluded do not venerate the system. No proud priest sufficiently privileged to insult the faith of another, whilst his own pomp and temporary power insult the precepts and example of the Founder of Christianity, and clog and impede the movements of the Constitution. The best machinery will acquire antiquated rust and venerable cobwebs, which should not be spared, whatever spiders may say. They are justly and proportionably taxed, and not by a scale favouring the wealthy. A property-tax is the only equitable tax, and that they have got; while their customs' duties are light, and do not exclude the industrious from luxuries. Why should the nobleman with 100,000l. a-year pay no more duty on a pound of tea, or a bottle of wine, than the man of 50%. a-year? Such taxes should be light, because they are chiefly paid by the middle classes; a property-tax alone can reach the aristocracy. There is no aristocracy in America at all similar to that of England; but that part of the population so miscalled, consists of the bankers, merchants, manufacturers, professional men, and all who aim at refinement or gentility, They hold no peculiar privileges nor power except their individual votes, which, as they are generally in the minority, are seldom of use; and while mechanics, Irish labourers, &c., shout and bully, threaten and harangue at elections, they quietly enter the polling-house, deposit their votes in the ballot-box, and retire. That portion of them which holds office, or is desirous of obtaining it, mixes with the vulgar, affects their habits and manners, rush into the main current of politics, and are called good democrats, republicans, and Jacksonmen. The others are abused and denounced as a bloated and corrupt aristocracy, thirsting for power. Their real faults in the eyes of the multitude probably are, that they do not join them in their taste for governing, and that their opposition to Jackson shows that they scorn to follow in the train of a demagogue. This party in America, it will be perceived, agrees exactly with the middle class in England, which has lately obtained a share in the power of the aristocracy. Let us imagine, if it be not treason, the whole of that aristocracy, consisting of the nobility and of the high patrician families, swept from the face of the earth-annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the ballot established; that the mob select a favourite, whom they would permit to administer the Constitution as he understood it, and appeal to themoutvote, envy, and hate the middle class-let us imagine this, and we have a parallel with America. Let us further imagine a manufacturer opposing, by his solitary and peaceable vote, the despotism of the sovereign in vetoing public measures which have passed both the lords and the commons, which measures particularly concern him, such as re-chartering the Bank of England, or opening the trade to China; and let us suppose the 500 men in the employ of this manufacturer-who had no interest in the question except through their employer-voting the contrary way; cheering the executive for removing the legislators opposed to their idol, and denouncing their own master for an aristocrat, who would exercise a little power if he could, who supports a corrupt press-that is, takes in a newspaper favourable to such aristocrats as Joseph Hume, Mr. Attwood, or Mr. Grote and we still must conceive even greater democratic tyranny than this, before we can understand the internal working of republicanism in America. Such a system we know could not long exist in England; nor could it in America, but for the ease and prosperity of the working classes, and the certainty of employment, But what an immense distance are we from such a state of things! The lowest and most numerous portion of the population holding no power whatever, at one extreme-a few hundred privileged families, till lately, wielding the whole power of the empire, at the other-and the entire mass of the middle class in the centre, extending from the verge of pauperism to that small but still powerful oligarchy, fenced in by prescriptive rights, and corrupted by prescriptive advantages; no feelings in common with the mass from which they extract their nourishment and support; and resembling the wild ivy, which clings to the live oak, displaying splendid festoons and variety of colours, but impeding his growth, and binding, whilst they embellish, his mighty arms. How absurd, then, is it to compare the still powerful oligarchy of England with the helpless and prostrate, though personally the most respectable party of the Americans-or the English commons with the blind and reckless democrats of America! We know what democracies have been in all ages-turbulent, headstrong, and shortlived; despotism has always abounded on the earth, and oligarchy has possessed sufficient opportunities of displaying its tyranny and selfishness. How is it that a powerful middle class has never yet existed? In France it possesses some power, though not sufficient to contend with despotism under Napoleon, or with democracy under Robespierre; but England at present exhibits the nearest approach to it, that has ever yet sprung up in the various shiftings of power. The reason is, that there never have been middle classes, except in a few trading communities, where they have been permitted to administer their own affairs, till crushed by foreign power; but the astonishing trade and manufacture of England have raised a mass of wealth and intelligence, too strong to be crushed by internal or external foes, so long as they are true to themselves. They are too numerous to have peculiar interests to corrupt them-too well off to desire anarchy or desperate changes-and too enlightened not to understand their own interests, which are blended and ramified through the whole fabric of society: and, for my part, they are the power in which I repose the greatest confidence, after which, I confide in a hereditary and well-instructed sovereign; and I trust that the union of such a head, with such a structure, will acquire sufficient strength and soundness to endure as long as the harbours, mines, and fertile plains of Britain. To those persons who may think of emigrating I would offer, at parting, my candid opinion: if they belong to the lowest class in the British islands they raise both their circumstances and their enjoyments; if to the middle class, they may improve their circumstances, but will probably find their enJoyments diminished; the first class have nothing to do with the question. Mechanics and labourers, especially from Ireland, where wages are at the lowest, would do well to set out as soon as they can muster money to defray the expenses of the transit; if they should not find immediate employment when they land, they have only to push forward,-abundance of food and clothing, whisky and tobacco, wait on labour everywhere; what the refined would call privations will be to them luxuries; and should the climate, or over-indulgence occasionally produce disease, it is the fate of man everywhere, and is, at all events, preferable to the illness produced by starvation. They can discharge their employers as they tire of them, and change their legislators annually if they choose, and, should they lose their political importance, and be rated as aristocrats, they may console themselves with the consciousness of having attained sufficient wealth and refinement to distinguish them from the common herd of democrats. The middle class I would, in general, advise to remain at home if they can live and support their families, or, if attached to kindred and soil, to endure many privations-but not absolute want-rather than tempt the seas, and wander into remote and uncivilized forests, where they will be at once buried to old friends and neighbours, without acquiring new. But if they have young families, in whose welfare all their desires and anxieties are centered, once settled in America all their uneasiness on that score will vanish; the children will reap the benefit of their wanderings, and find their country where the parents found banishment. If they be persons of refined and fastidious habits, and be obliged to emigrate, I feel for them; but should they have the power of choosing, when such do emigrate, they will do best to get into rising and prosperous settlements, and devote themselves to teaching, or some intellectual occupation; or, perhaps, to become accountants, and, in time, transact business on their own accounts: if they conduct themselves in a courteous, unassuming manner, they will run little risk of being insulted-if females, none,-and, though they can hardly escape wrongs and injuries, they will be sure to find persons disposed to do them service. With industry and prudence they need not fear pecuniary privations; but they may calculate on wants which no wealth could supply,the social intercourse of congenial minds, and the respectful assiduity of servants. The best gentlemanly subject for emigration, in my opinion, is a young man, enterprising and qualified for business, disposed to encounter climates, labour and privations, during the vigour of his days, in pursuit of fortune; and this is hardly so much as every naval and military man has to undergo in colonial settlements with less inducements. If he be desirous of making quick work, at all risk, let him go to the cotton States of America, Texas, or Mexico; and when he has enough to satisfy his desires, he will return and enjoy it in the social pursuits, and amongst the friends of his youth, unless that, in the mean time, he has formed other ties, and has acquired other tastes and views. I sailed from New Orleans in June, 1835, to return to that hive from whence so may swarms issue, and which I thought I had left for ever, nearly four years before. With the ocean breeze, reviving health and cheering prospects, I felt assured that my sand was yet by no means expended; that I might still be received into the bosom of my mother-country, bask under the sunshine of the arts, and renew all the habits, and some of the friendships of former days. Even while confined in my floating prison, I felt, with satisfaction, that a ship was not the land of liberty and equality, consequently I enjoyed all the confidence and security of which the elements could not deprive me. We remained for two days becalmed south of Tortugas, about the 21st of June, so that we had a vertical sun at noon. The heat was almost intolerable; the thermometer standing at 93° in the round-house, not a breath of air stirring, and having no awning, a bit of shade was the scarcest article imaginable. Our own shadows depended on the extent of our hat brims; the masts when perpendicular pointed at the sun, and the sails flapping against them sent us their shadows edgeways, which the swell of the sea rendered exceedingly erratic. We sounded and found bottom with 40 fathoms line, and in drawing up the lead, it was followed from the depths by an immense multitude of fish of various sizes and degrees, whose curiosity had apparently been excited by the strange visitation so we perceive that even fish run gaping after novelties. They were evidently a well-fed community, for even the sharks, of which we saw several, declined our treacherous hospitality. Our Captain, a New Englander,-I believe all American skippers are Yankees, was a quiet, well-tempered man, who used the smallest possible quantity of curses in ordering his crew. He was quite at home in a gale of wind, and had a mortal antipathy to a calm: on those occasions, he was to be found for hours leaning against the bulwark, his looks directed to the quarter from which he wanted a wind to come, and occasionally muttering,"Oh! blow, my bonny breeze, do blow!" Whether he had any confidence in the incantation I know not, but sailors are the most superstitious of mortals; and faith may raise the wind, as well as move mountains, in which case it would naturally, when we would, do both at once. However, speculations apart, the wind did come one night; and though its approach was seen, and preparation was made by taking in studding sails, and royals, and reefing, yet we had four or five sails carried away in as many minutes, and the ship so much on her beam-ends, that she would not obey the rudder, but wheeled round and round till she righted. About midnight, whilst all the crew were aloft on the yards, except the helmsman, I saw, from the roundhouse, the captain, in his attempt to run to the leeward, laid prostrate on his back, and slide to his post like a loose slate on the roof of a house; and though an active seaman, he had considerable difficulty in scrambling up to the windward again. We frequently sailed ten knots an hour, and sometimes made 220 miles a day. When off Holyhead, we found ourselves in company with about fifty sail, of which four were Americans, and before we had got half way to Liverpool, these four led the squadron. It seems to me that the English do not build a single trading vessel that can sail with an American. But a truce to America, adieu to the Atlantic, for yonder stands the smoke-capped emporium of commerce. 66 THREE SONNETS TO THE AUTHOR OF ION.' NO 2017 BY LEIGH HUNT. I. I could not come-to shed a man's rare tears Now, said I to myself, the scenes arise; Now comes the sweet of name,* whom great love sunders From love itself; now, now he gives the skies The heart they gave (sweet thought 'gainst bitter wonders!) And ever and aye, hands, strong with tear-thrill'd eyes, Snapping the silence, burst in crashing thunders. II. Yes, I beheld the old accustom'd sight, Pit, boxes, galleries; I was at "the play;" Nobler in sacred fellowship of tears! I've often thought what sight we have on earth, III. Fine age is ours, and marvellous-setting free Of faith in good-and toil of wealth unthwarted * Ion signifies a violet. |