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thing is said, and more is suggested, about the interest excited in the breast of the young author by the lady, and in the breast of the lady by the young author. He turns out to be a short-hand writer employed to take notes of the trial. His introductory letter is intended to supply information and explanation; for • Madame Manson's style is not remarkable for throwing a light on circumstances.' He believes, however, that it may be difficult to reconcile the lady's conduct to frigid or prejudiced minds.' 'France entire,' he says, supposes artifices, combined interests, and profound calculations:' all the secrets, however, he assures us, repose in the human heart.' To elucidate this, he deems it necessary to enter into a general analysis of her disposition, education, life, and character.' The analysis, however, is very compendious. We learn that she is about thirty-three years of age; that in her youth she displayed a grand finesse,' a 'sensibilité exquise,' and that when she was but eight years old she manifested heroic resignation under the troubles of the revolution. She herself, in a letter to one of the ministers of state (for she did not confine her correspondence to the prefect) declares, that if her parents had perished on the scaffold at that time, she would have mounted it with them! Her modest wish is to be examined by his excellency at Paris: and, writing to her mother, she exclaims, Ah! could I but see his majesty Louis XVIII, and the august daughter of Louis XVI, whose fate we have so often wept over!'

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The young author intimates that Madame Manson was crossed in her first love. She married to obey her father,' as is often done in France; and as such cases generally turn out, the marriage was unhappy.' M. Manson quitted her at the end of three months; and the lady, it appears, 'gave occasion for talking;' but, says the young author, she was singular, because she was superior.' Her husband returned, and wished her to live with him: she refused; but being superior, and therefore singular, she hid him in her mother's house. He was discovered in his concealment and 'sacrificed,' that is to say, he was turned out of doors; but Madame Manson, under pretence of going to the village to fulfil a pious duty, used to meet him in a wood.' 'Who can explain these caprices?' asks the young author. To prove that he cannot, he quotes Madame de Stael, who says, that 'the vulgar take for madness the uneasiness of a mind that cannot respire in the world enough of air, of enthusiasm, of hope?' To make this quite clear, he adds a note in which we are informed that Madame la Duchesse de Longueville, on drinking a glass of deliciously cold water, exclaimed, What a pity it is not a sin!'

The analysis does not go much further: the young wife became a mother;' but she seems to have lived entirely separated from her husband ever since. On the Memoirs themselves, which relate chiefly to her acquaintance with Mr. Clemendot and the events of her imprisonment, we cannot enter. They operated miraculously in her favour in France. Nothing was talked of in society

or in the newspapers, but the graces of her style and the respect due to her misfortunes! A hundred thousand francs are reported to have been offered to her to preside in a café after her liberation. The work, as we have before said, is interesting as a specimen of human nature, but barefaced profligacy is marked on every page. Her inhumanity and selfishness in scattering insinuations of guilt at random amongst men, and women, and children, would have directed against her in this country, one general expression of contemptuous abhorrence. But, indeed, in this country we never should have heard of her Memoirs. Justice here would have found a way to extract the truth within her knowledge without theatrical parade, or would quietly but severely have chastised her falsehoods, and examined and settled the case on such valid evidence as could be procured. The star of Madame Manson would never have pierced the fogs of our atmosphere: instead of calling her to preside in a coffee-room, we should most probably have sent her to Bridewell; and it is very certain that lord Ellenborough would never have styled her an angel, nor sir Samuel Shepherd have directed a jury to accept as proofs against men on trial for their lives, her faintings, her attitudes, and her exclamations. At the Old Baily there would have been no mareschals de camp to receive her as she fell; but there the lady would not have fallen. M. Fualdès, the son, had he attempted there to explain his revelations, would have been desired not to interrupt the court, but to confine his grief to its proper sphere-his own chamber. With a general eagerness for the discovery of the culpable, and a serious horror at the crime, our people would neither have shed tears, nor raised cries, nor displayed tremblings: in short, we should have none of those dramatic incidents which rendered the assizes at Rhodez so touching. On the other hand, as some compensation for this deficiency, the proceedings would have borne a firm, clear, distinct, and precise character: nothing but substantial and applicable facts would have influenced the fate of the accused; praters on physiognomy would not have dared to open their lips within the solemn precincts of the court; dignity, gravity, and decency, would have marked its operations: the prisoners would have been treated with humanity, judged with strictness; and, if found guilty, punished with rigour.

ART. VI.-Sketch of the Internal Improvements already made by Pennsylvania, with observations upon her physical and fiscal means for their extension, particularly as they have reference to the future growth and prosperity of Philadelphia. Illustrated by maps of the head-waters of the principal rivers of the state. By Samuel Breck, one of the members of the senate of Pennsylvania, for the district composed of the city and county of Philadelphia.-Philada. 1818.

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WING to the advanced period of the month, at which this pamphlet fell into our hands, we cannot pretend to do any thing like justice, on this occasion, to its important subject and great merits. But we would lose no time in pointing it out to the no

tice, and recommending it to the serious attention, of the public. When a gentleman such as the author, of independent fortune, habitual sincerity, unmixed patriotism, and of the degree of intelligence, manifested in this performance, imposes upon himself, besides the immediate duties of a legislator, the task of counselling and enlightening his fellow-citizens in this way, he deserves to be formally thanked not only for the worth of the instruction, but the utility of the example. It is such men, disposed to employ their masculine and well-trained minds about the matters discussed in the present pamphlet, with an elate and contagious zeal, that we wish to see in the legislature, and upon whom the state may count as the most certain agents of its highest welfare. They may overrate means and results, as Mr. Breck will, probably, be suspected of having done, in the fervor of his wishes;-but the enterprises at which they aim, must ever be productive of mighty advantages; and it happens with states as with individuals—possunt quia posse videntur.

The objects of the pamphlet are to vindicate Pennsylvania from the charge of inactivity in internal improvements; to demonstrate the ability of Philadelphia to engross the greater part of the western and north-western trade, and to rouse her to the exertions necessary to frustrate the alert rivalry of New York and Baltimore. The author has succeeded in the first by means of details and considerations which are conclusive; and he has gone far towards establishing his second point; or, at least, has clearly evinced that it is well worth the while of Philadelphia to engage, even at a much heavier cost than is at all likely to be incurred, in the scheme of water-communication which he recommends. In regard to his third object, it may be hoped that she will be promptly obedient to exhortations flowing from such a source, and founded on calculations so substantial. Her interests could not be exhibited to her with more distinctness and earnestness, or with more of the authority of knowledge and affection, than they are in this instance. There has prevailed, as Mr. Breck suggests, a fashion of representing the government and people of Pennsylvania as sluggish and parsimonious, with respect to the great ends of public economy. It is a prejudice which has grown out of the ideas entertained of the character and habits of the Germans, who are supposed, at a distance, to give tone and direction to the Pennsylvanian legislature. However this may be, the details furnished in the present pamphlet, are evidences of an exceedingly industrious and efficient public-spirit, which has incalculably advanced the comfort and wealth, and is steadily expanding with the wants and liberal aims of the community. We have it asserted by Mr. Breck, that Pennsylvania-to use his own language-'has achieved very much within the last six years as to internal improvements-that she has granted numerous charters for turnpike-roads, bridges, canals, &c. the major-part of which she has aided with funds to an amount exceeding two millions of dollars-that her public seminaries and private schools have been patronized by laws and by money—that

her agriculture has improved, and her general policy been attended to by its legislature with skill and vigilance.'

The facts which he adduces in support of these allegations, are abundantly satisfactory. We can notice only a few of them, and that in the most summary manner.-As early as 1808, an act was passed, authorizing the governor to subscribe 3400 shares to the stock of six or seven turnpike companies then incorporated:-in 1811, eight hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and fifty dollars were appropriated to roads and bridges:-during the subsequent four years, an average annual sum of 200,000 was allotted to public works, academies, schools, &c. though the war expenses of the state-treasury during this period amounted to near a million, never claimed from the general government: at the session of 1816-17, 700,000 dollars were appropriated in like manner, &c. The Pennsylvania turnpike roads are of a much more solid and expensive structure, than those of New York and New England. In a short time the principal points of the state will be connected by near one thousand and fifty miles of paved road, united by stone bridges, and which have cost about six millions of dollars, to which the state contributes one million 200,000 dollars. Many of these roads give the stockholders six per cent; some, eight. The annual wagon-freight between the Ohio and Philadelphia, is computed at a million of dollars, and will probably be double that sum, when the roads are completed. In bridges, Pennsylvania eclipses, not only her sister-states, but-looking to dimensions-Europe likewise. The Pennsylvania bridges are universally built upon stone piers, and very generally protected by handsome roofs. The total cost of those of the first class amounts to one million six hundred and ninety-eight thousand and five hundred dollars. Those of the second class are both numerous and expensive. The state contributed about four hundred thousand of the sum just mentioned. Many of the bridges produce six per cent;-the daily toll of the Harrisburg bridge is not less than fifty dollars.-In deepening rivers and making canals, the government of the state has accomplished a great deal, and never spared money or exertion of any kind. Individual companies have done much under its patronage; but we must deny ourselves the pleasure of citing the particulars mentioned by Mr. Breck. For the completion of the navigation of the Schuylkill, three hundred thousand dollars were asked and subscribed in Philadelphia in a few days by individuals. The commonwealth of Pennsylvania has granted to colleges and academies 427,333 dollars, while the people have borne an expense, annually, of 120,000 dollars for the education of the poor. But Mr. Breck acknowledges that Pennsylvania might have done more for these objects than she has done. Virginia has outstripped her far by her vast and noble 'Literary fund; New York and some of the New England 'states, have greatly exceeded her by splendid appropriations; and the reserved lands of the western states will make the exchequer of education there, as rich as the friends of knowledge could wish. It is not that elementary schools are want.

ing throughout Pennsylvania. They exist in all parts of it, and the inhabitants are universally disposed to encourage them. But a due sense of the importance of the higher branches of instruction is rare, even, we fear, in the legislature. A great apathy reigns on this score; we might, perhaps, say-a blind antipathy. The author of the excellent pamphlet before us, is far from partaking in either of these feelings, and writes, in the most decided tone, in favour of the sound doctrine of the case, and true course of proceeding. It would,' he says, 'have been particularly desirable to see Pennsylvania patronize, with especial love and care, one central school--one seminary of genius, in which the promising youth of the state could find, at little cost, professors of all the higher branches of science, and procure that aid in perfecting their education which would send them forth-"the best patterns of their species, and give a dignity to that nature of which we all participate." Philadelphia has many of the elements of such a school within her University, but many yet are wanting. It is the sovereign hand of the state alone that can collect and sustain them all in one focus, and give to the great whole, or to each constituent part, a full and efficient support. We may hope that the day is not distant, when she will make it her pride and her duty to accomplish this all important task.'

The business of government, in truth, is not merely to promote the animal prosperity, or even to accomplish what is usually understood by the happiness, of the people; but to aim at the perfection of the rational being; to raise the greatest possible number of citizens to the highest moral dignity of which our nature is capable. All the most enlightened governments have recognised this as one of the chief ends of their existence, and sought to accomplish it, in part by means similar to that proposed in the quotation just made. A great school of philosophy is of unquestionable and unrivalled efficaciousness in refining and elevating the moral man. Philadelphia offers a better theatre and more facilities for such an institution, than are to be had elsewhere in the Union. As a place of residence, learned professors must find it the most eligible for them, under every point of view-as a place of resort for the liberal youth of the country, it possesses the most solid advantages, and holds out the noblest temptations. Pennsylvania, then, would seem doubly culpable in looking with indifference upon the University, in the formation of which Franklin, from the considerations we have suggested, took an especial pride and interest, and upon which, believing that those considerations would in time be equally operative with the whole state, he built towering hopes.

The medical school-conducted, as it has been, with signal ability, has flourished without extraneous aid, from its being the immediate avenue to a lucrative profession, and appealing thus, directly, to what may be considered as the besetting sin of the American character. The corrective is in the influence of the moral sciences which abstract the attention and affections from

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