merely personal and professional prosperity:-They are in themselves of more dignity than the physical; they are conversant with higher matters; they look to more exalted ends; they lead to the most perfect civilization, which has its seat in the mind, and does not consist in the achievements of manual and commercial skill and industry-estimable as these are on their own account, and as instruments of its progress and preservation. It would not be difficult to show that those sciences are the most important to the nation, from their closer connexion with our sublimest and dearest interests, the religious and political.

There is no expedient for promoting the study of them, and turning them in every way to the best account, more certain than the establishment of professorships, organized as a primary faculty of a University which should be overshadowed and hallowed by government. Such a Faculty with us would not, as its subjects of instruction are not in immediate contact with the ordinary business of life, appear likely to be numerously followed at first, and could not therefore be well officered, unless it were liberally endowed by the state, or by the city of Philadelphia, which has a still more urgent interest and obligation in this respect. Well constituted, it could not fail to draw to it, in time, crowds of pupils from all parts of the Union, as the medical school has done, and thus give returns worthy, in every sense and aspect, of any degree of generosity and activity which might be now exerted in its favour. We have not the intention of enlarging, at present, on the nature of those returns which we should be glad, however, to see placed before the public in such detail and evidence as would leave the most general and complete impression of their value.

But we would advert to one particular use which, to our apprehension, is far from being imaginary or insignificant-of such professorships as those, for instance, of public law, of ethics, of the science of government, political economy, the history, characters and institutions of nations, and even of the Belles Lettres and criticism,-supposing always that they were invested with the due adventitious authority and dignity; conducted with form, temper, and disengagement from party-prepossessions: and bottomed on judgment and taste, deep reflection, and extensive research. The use to which we allude is this-that they would, under such circumstances, more effectually than all the elaborate treatises within our reach-as often false as true guides-counteract the spurious principles, crude theories, partial and interested and too commonly ignorant judgments in all those branches of knowledge, which are daily served up in our newspapers, and in the productions of foreign empiricism reprinted among us, and which find, through these channels, an easy access to the confidence of so large a portion of the reading population of America. We speak with freedom, and will be understood by the many enlightened and thinking persons who must have marked this evil, and cannot but be aware of the extent and mischievousness in which it may prevail, from the undistinguishing cupidity with

which the worst trash of the English press is republished and disseminated in this country; from the overweening boldness with which the writers of our gazettes approach and decide all questions however abstract and complicate; the predominant credit which their sibylline leaves enjoy with the majority of their readers, and the impression which they must, insensibly, leave upon the minds of all of whatever description or pursuits.

Before we leave this topic of public lectures in moral science, we would make another remark of obvious validity-that they can be no where attended with equal utility, or equal dignity, as in these United States; because they cannot elsewhere be prosecuted with the same latitude of inquiry and independence of opinion; with so complete an exemption from all warping or chilling, external influences; with so little danger of the intrusion of prejudice and partial interests. Established religions, monarchical forms of government, ancient theories, the punishments and rewards of political authority, every where in Europe set barriers to reason and truth, and thus deny full scope to the energies of public instruction. It seems incumbent upon the state of Pennsylvania to improve the concurrence, which she sees at home, of every possible circumstance favourable to the perfection of the system; and it will not be a little glorious for her to have been the first of the Union to make, upon the proper scale, an experiment, of which the success would ensure a repetition of it and its final victory in all our great cities.

To return to Mr. Breck's statements.-He recapitulates the sums expended in Pennsylvania, principally within seven years, by the public and by incorporated companies, upon roads, bridges, rivers and schools; and presents an aggregate in round numbers of eleven millions of dollars. He then proceeds to speak of the financial means and annual expenses of her government, and gives as the gratifying result, a clear estate of five millions, seven hundred and thirty-six thousand and fifty-seven dollars, and an excess of revenue over and above the generous supply of all her regular expenses, of more than one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars, while she owes nothing except the unpaid balance of the appropriations for internal improvement.' A considerable part of her funds are invested in bank-stock, which, in 1817, yielded enough to defray two-thirds of the whole expenditure of government.

She is not deficient in judicious and enlightened internal regulations. A general survey, says Mr. Breck, has been made of each county, and separate county draughts, executed for the most part with great topographical elegance and accuracy, are to be seen now at the Surveyor-General's office. A complete, detailed atlas of Pennsylvania might be formed out of this collection. A grand ichnographic view of the state will result from the surveys, and the most comprehensive statistical tables may be expected under the system of official inquiry pursued simultaneously.-For the punishment of vice, without unnecessary cruelty or an in

decent exhibition of the culprit, the code of Pennsylvania is ample and salutary. She is now engaged in perfecting a system of penitentiary punishments which she originated, and which she has had the satisfaction to see adopted in both hemispheres. Her arsenals are numerous and well supplied with munitions of war; her inspection-laws are such as have given to her objects of exportation, the highest credit and character abroad: her laws for the reparation of by-roads are in general well executed. She has incorporated an Agricultural Society, and will at the next session of the legislature, grant money for the purchase and maintenance of a pattern-farm. In speaking of these arrangements, Mr. Breck takes occasion to advert to a prevailing opinion which we ourselves, we must confess, had hastily espoused, and which we are glad to find contradicted by one whose testimony is of so much weight. We quote his own emphatic language on the subject: Some of my constituents suppose with great injustice, I think, that there is a disinclination in the western section of the state to serve the eastern, During the four months which I sat in the senate, I saw no signs of such a disposition—no bad tem'per upon the subject-nothing in the least hostile to Philadelphia. 'No jealousy, no ill-will was shown towards this city; nor was 'there the slightest difficulty to obtain any local laws, even for the 'exclusive advantage of our district, whenever its representatives were unanimously disposed to support such a law. If they dif'fered among themselves, the gentlemen from the west and else'where, exercised their judgments, as they were bound to do, and sided with whichever of our own members they thought 'right.'

เ

Nearly one half of the present pamphlet is devoted to the purpose of showing the superior situation of Philadelphia, geographically considered, for the attraction of the great and increasing 'trade of the countries bordering on the Susquehanna, the Lakes, and the Western rivers.' It will not, we think, be denied by any of his readers that the author has at least made out a strong case, and is entitled to a most serious and grateful hearing from the citizens of Philadelphia. He may be a little too sanguine, too magnificent, as to consequences; but the water-communications which he would have opened are practicable, and, unquestionably of great moment to that capital. We cannot follow him in his ample and scrupulous details, though we must stop to cite such a fact as the following, well supported as it is by geographical evidence-that the totality of the portage now existing between the Schuylkill at the Market-street permanent bridge, and the mouth of the river Columbia on the Pacific ocean is seventy-five miles! We could almost indulge ourselves in supposing with the author that, at some future day, our teas and silks will arrive from the river Columbia, through the Missouri, Ohio, Alleghany, Susquehanna, and Schuylkill, to the Delaware, by safe and sound steam-boat conveyances.'

He sets in a strong light the geographical advantages which he thinks Philadelphia has over New-York and Baltimore for the attraction of the trade in question, but he is very sensible of the danger from their rivalry, as things now are, and very earnest in calling the attention of the Philadelphians to that danger. There is something startling for them in the following heartfelt suggestions:- It does not require the gift of prophecy to foretell, that if we remain idle, with no water-communication with the Susquehanna, and a heavy toll to pay upon a road three 'hundred miles long, Baltimore will acquire very soon a superiority over us;-nay, I will boldly aver, that the trade from the 'Ohio, through its usual overland route, will wholly leave Phila'delphia in a few years.-1st. Because Baltimore is nearer to 'that river by ninety miles, over the new national road toll-free, 'from Wheeling to Cumberland, and will of course supply the 'Western states with all light Atlantic luxuries, much cheaper 'than we can; and 2dly, Because the steam-boats, on the Missis'sippi and its tributary streams, which already numerous, ' and susceptible of any increase, will transport all articles of bulk from New Orleans at a less rate than can be done by us.'

Mr. Breck states, in another place, that there will be this year, thirty steam-boats on those waters, and that fifteen hundred flatbottomed boats and five hundred barges arrived at New Orleans from the upper country in the year ending October 1st, 1817.-It is this system of transportation becoming so vast, waxing daily into invincible habit, and multiplying interests so powerful and various on the side of New Orleans, that the Philadelphians have to dread, though they should open a safe water-route to the Susquehanna and thence to the Alleghany. We should not, perhaps, even hint at certain political contingencies which would defeat the grand consummation so fondly wooed by our author. But they are possible, although infinitely to be deprecated, and his scheme of communcation has doubtless a sure tendency to avert them. All such plans of internal improvement are strongly recommended by the single trait, separately from all other merits, of favouring the perpetuity of the Union.

Foreigners may generalize the picture which this pamphlet presents of the weal of Pennsylvania, and consider it as shadowing out the condition of most of the American states, which are all indeed in the same career of unexampled prosperity. The pages of Mr. Breck serve, moreover, the purpose of displaying the importance and fruitfulness of the functions of the state governments, and, concurrently, the beauty and harmony of the federal system. It is in relation to such commonwealths as this system embraces, and above all to the one treated of in the pamphlet, which we have thus cursorily noticed, that we may repeat the well-known observation of Cicero-Nihil est illi principi Deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat, acceptius, quam consilia cætusque hominum jure sociati, quæ civitates vocantur.

ART. VII. Beppo, a Venetian story. 8vo. pp. 50. Murray, London, 1818.

(From the British Review.)

WHEN any new entertainment is observed to be rising fast in fashion and favour in the country, it requires to be watched a little by those who exercise any guardianship over the morals of the community, but which, except when it infects the literature of the day, does not fall under the cognizance of reviewers. Of this description is the practice of what is called quizzing. In its object and character, it is in the moral, not much unlike that which, in the political world, is called the levelling principle: it is by far the most effectual weapon by which virtue and decency can be assailed: it is strong in proportion to the indesert of the person using it, and the dignity of the person or thing against which it is employed. 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,' are the natural game after vich the quizzer is in restless pursuit. The poem before us very superior performance of the quizzing kind. It has a double aspect being at once an apparent parody on lord Byron's poetry when dressed in its best attire-the Spenser stanza; and at the same time an attack upon the charities and bonds of social life, in a spirit of seeming good humour, careless scorn, and gay indecency.

As far as it can be considered as a burlesque upon lord Byron's manner, it is harmless and happy. It detracts no more from the high claims of the original than the battle of the frogs has had any such effect upon the Iliad of Homer;-a comparison which such of our readers as suspect the poem before us to have really proceeded from the pen of lord Byron himself will acknowledge to be peculiarly appropriate. And, indeed, as far as the profligacy of sentiment running through this poem of Beppo can be placed to the account of imitation and parody, it is a part of its merit; for the resemblance between the solemn banter, and epicurean sarcasm which mark every page of the Childe Harold, and the derisory ease and ironical pleasantry with which all serious things are treated in this poem of Beppo, is most successfully preserved; so successfully, indeed, that we cannot help yielding to the suspicion that these productions, both original and imitative, are by the same hand. 'None but himself could be his parallel.'

If lord Eyron has been his own imitator, his task could not have been difficult; since he had little else to do than to adapt the measure and spirit of a style of poetry, in which he was so habitually conversant to villany less heroic, and vice in its more domestic and familiar habitudes. And it is worthy of remark also how little of the charm, and vivacity, and melody of this species of versification is lost in treating of subjects the most familiar.

Flexibility and compass, and a certain facility of accommodation to all subjects, whether sublime or mean, sad or humorous,