ulating upon the chips and straws that were carried over the fall.

That his digressions are sometimes abrupt, is a character which he shares with his Grecian master; and that an obscurity sometimes broods over his sublimest images, is not to be denied. But violence of transition, if it is a fault in this kind of poetry, must be excused by those laws of lyrical composition, which we have hitherto been content to receive, like the laws of the drama and the epic, implicitly from the ancients; and the obscurity of Gray is never invincible. It is not the fog of dulness; but, like the darkness which the eye at first perceives in excessive brightness, it vanishes the longer it is contemplated, and when the eye is accommodated to the flood of light.

The distinguishing excellence of Gray's poetry is, I think, to be found in the astonishing force and beauty of his epithets. In other poets, if you are endeavouring to recollect a passage, and find that a single word still eludes you, it is not impossible to supply it occcasionally with something equivalent or superior. But let any man attempt this in Gray's poetry, and he will find that he does not even approach the beauty of the original. Like the single window in Aladdin's palace, which the grand vizier undertook to finish with diamonds equal to the rest, but found, after a long trial, that he was not rich enough to furnish the jewels, nor ingenious enough to dispose them, so there are lines in Gray, which critics and poets might labour forever to supply, and without success. This wonderful richness of expression has perhaps injured his fame. For sometimes a single word, by giving rise to a succession of images, which preoccupy the mind, obscures the lustre of the succeeding epithets. The mind is fatigued and retarded by the crowd of beauties, soliciting the attention at the same moment to different graces of thought and expression. Overpowered by the blaze of embellishment, we cry out with Horace, "Parce, Liber! parce! gravi metuende thyrso." Hence Gray, more than any other lyric poet, will endure to be read in detached portions, and again and again.

Another characteristic of Gray, which, while it detracts something from his originality, increases the charm of his verse, is the classical raciness of his diction. Milton is the only English poet who rivals him in the remote learning of his allusions, and this has greatly restrained the number of their admirers. The meaning of the word rage, in this line of the Elegy, a poem which all profess to relish and admire,

* # * #

"Chill penury repressed their noble rage,"

cannot be understood without reverting to a common use of the word opyn among the Greeks, to which Gray refers, signifying a strong bent of genius. The Progress of Poesy is peculiarly full of allusions to the Heathen Mythology The sublime imitation of Pindar, in the description of the bird of Jupiter, in the second stanza, is almost worth the learning of Greek to understand.

The last perfection of verse, in which Gray is unrivalled, is the power of his numbers. These have an irresistible charm even with those; who understand not his meaning, and without this musical enchantment, it is doubtful whether he would have surmounted the ignorance and insensibility, with which he was at first received. His rhythm and cadences afford a perpetual pleasure, which, in the full contemplation of his other charms, we sometimes forget to acknowledge. There is nothing, surely, in the whole compass of English versification, to be compared in musical structure with the third stanza of his ode on the Progress of Poesy. The change of movement, in the six last lines, is inexpressibly fine. The effect of these varied cadences and measures is, to my ear at least, full as great as that of an adagio in music immediately following a rondo; and I admire in silent rapture the genius of that man, who could so mould our untractable language as to produce all the effect of the great masters of musical composition. If the ancient lyrics contained many specimens of numerous verse equal to this, we need no longer wonder that they were always accompanied with music. Poetry never approached nearer to painting, than verse does in this stanza to the most ravishing melody.

Republics of Greece and Italy.-HAMILTOM.

It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions, by which they were kept perpetually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrasts to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open themselves to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection, that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle as with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments, for which the favoured soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated.

From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics, the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free governments as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans. Happily for mankind, stupendous fabrics, reared on the basis of liberty, which have flourished for ages, have, in a few instances, refuted their gloomy sophisms. And I trust America will be the broad and solid foundation of other edifices not less magnificent, which will be equally permanent monuments of their error.

But it is not to be denied, that the portraits they have sketched of republican government were but too just copies of the originals from which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends of liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of

The science of politics, how

government as indefensible. ever, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments-the introduction of legislative balances and checks-the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behaviour -the representation of the people in the legislature, by deputies of their own election-these are either wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained, and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

Professional Character of William Pinkney.—
HENRY WHEATON.

IN tracing the principal outlines of his public character, his professional talents and attainments must necessarily occupy the most prominent place. To extraordinary nat ural endowments, Mr. Pinkney added deep and various knowledge in his profession. A long course of study and practice had familiarized his mind with the science of jurisprudence. His intellectual powers were most conspicuous He had in the investigations connected with that science. felt himself originally attracted to it by invincible inclination; it was his principal pursuit in life; and he never entirely lost sight of it in his occasional deviations into other pursuits and employments. The lures of political ambition and the blandishments of polished society, or perhaps a vague desire of universal accomplishment and general applause, might sometimes tempt him to stray, for a season, from the path which the original bent of his genius had assigned him. But he always returned with fresh ardour and new delight to his appropriate vocation. He was devoted to the law with a true enthusiasm; and his other studies and pursuits, so far as they had a serious ob

ject, were valued chiefly as they might minister to this idol of his affections.

It was in his profession that he found himself at home; in this consisted his pride and his pleasure; for, as he said, "the bar is not the place to acquire or preserve a false and fraudulent reputation for talents." And on that theatre he felt conscious of possessing those powers which would command success.

This entire devotion to his professional purs its was continued with unremitting perseverance to the end of his career. If the celebrated Denys Talon could say of the still more celebrated D'Aguesseau, on hearing his first speech at the bar, "that he would willingly END as that young man COMMENCED," every youthful aspirant to forensic fame among us might wish to begin his professional exertions with the same love of labour, and the same ardent desire of distinction, which marked the efforts of William Pinkney throughout his life.

What might not be expected from professional emulation, directed by such an ardent spirit and such singleness of purpose, even if sustained by far inferior abilities! But no abilities, however splendid, can command success at the bar, without intense labour and persevering application, It was this which secured to Mr. Pinkney the most extensive and lucrative practice ever acquired by any American lawyer, and which raised him to such an enviable height of professional eminence. For many years he was the acknowledged leader of the bar in his native state; and, during the last ten years of his life, the principal period of his attendance in the supreme court of the nation, he enjoyed the reputation of having been rarely equalled, and perhaps never excelled, in the power of reasoning upon legal subjects. This was the faculty which nost remarkably distinguished him. His mind was acu.e and subtile, and, at the same time, comprehensive in its grasp, rapid and clear in its conceptions, and singularly felicitous in the exposition of the truths it was employed in investigating.

Of the extent and solidity of his legal attainments it would be difficult to speak in adequate terms, without the appearance of exaggeration. He was profoundly versed in the