popular element, which will henceforth be the moving force in every civilized government, no matter what may be its form.

But, while the French revolution has furnished such a rich fund of political experience to the contemplation of the world, it has been of incalculable advantage to France. It broke down, with a rude hand, the abuses and evils consecrated by the sufferance of a thousand years,-it overthrew the systems of feudality and priestcraft,-it seized with unrelenting energy, on the property of the noble, the priest and the corporation, and distributed it amongst the people,—it broke down that miserable system of custom-houses, (douanniers,) which interrupted trade between province and province, and thus it diffused the blessings of free trade over a great nation.*

Lastly, we may assert, that however depraved the morals and manners of the French were during the progress of the revolution, that great event has nevertheless operated a most beneficial change in this respect. It has acted like the storm which has purified the atmosphere. The Bourbons, when they came back to Paris, were ashamed to act as their ancestors had done. The court of Louis Philippe is now one of the most decorous in Europe; and the profligate scenes of the regency, and of the reign of Louis XV., can never occur again in the history of France. If enlightened philanthropy, then, should be called on, in full view of all the evils and all the benefits resulting from the French revolution, to render up a final judgment, we can scarcely for a moment doubt that it would be in favor of the revolution and all its attendant horrors, if these were the only condition on which the benefits could be obtained.

It is these beneficial influences which explain, in part, the mighty resources which France constantly exhibited during this period and under the empire, and by not sufficiently attending to them, Pitt was led into the mistake of almost constantly thinking, during the progress of the contest, that France was on the eve of national bankruptcy. In 1794 he was confident of this result,- -so was he in 1799,-yet France moved on with gigantic energy, and six years afterwards, on the field of Austerlitz, broke to pieces the last and greatest coalition of Pitt, and no doubt sent that great minister to an untimely grave. While we are thus noticing the great mistake of Pitt in regard to France, it is curious to see that Napoleon was constantly making one as great in regard to England. He read the speeches of Fox and the journals of the opposition, and was constantly looking for the fall of the anti-gallican administration, judging merely by the virulence with which it was attacked. He never could understand the character of the British government.

ART. II.-MATHEWS' POEMS ON MAN.-Poems on Man, in his various aspects under the American Republic.By CORNELIUS MATHEWS, Author of "The Motley Book," "Behemoth," "Puffer Hopkins," etc. New-York: Wiley & Putnam. 1843.

THE present age is fruitful in philosophies, which possess the merit of ingenuity and novelty at least, if not of certainty and soundness. It is only to open our eyes and to stretch our ears, and strange writings appear upon the wall, and a wild jargon hurries through the void. It is emphatically the age of "strange tongues," and the Reverend Edward Irving has no more exclusive right to this phrase than we have to his evangelism. But we need not dilate in generalities. A single sample is all that we need to satisfy the objects of present speculation. Thus, then, it appears, according to some of our ingenious commentators, that it is only now, for the first time, that we have any poetry for the people. After all that has been written in the "numerous verse" of ages, from Homer to the moderns, we have seldom or never (until recent times,) been favored with any verse which peculiarly addressed itself to the nature and the necessities of the people. The people are now-O! happy people!-to have their Muse-how begotten is yet to appear, but she is to be, and to have her Bards, who, it may be conjectured, in their peculiar homage of the ONE, will be very likely to give the go-by, and exhibit a cold shoulder, to the NINE!

We suspect that all this ingenious speculation-the result, as we must believe, of false ideas, as well of poetry as of the people-has its origin in a very creditable desire to elevate and illustrate practical politics with some of that "purple atmosphere" which may be supposed to hang about the ideal. Man, in the present age, and in most Christian societies, is assuming that rank in conventional estimate, to which Christianity itself most clearly indicates his claims. He is rising-that is, the masses are rising-in the scale and equality of society and humanity, and beginning to make themselves felt, not merely as agents of power, and having a power of their own for good or for evil,-but as susceptible also of some of those higher tastes and attributes which, hitherto, have been claimed exclusively, and perhaps exclusively

held, by a select and fortunate few. Education is doing its work, as one of the results of improved physical condition. With the conviction that the animal man is easily provided with his "grub," the intellectual man begins to look around him for his provision also. The day's work is done-and the laborer, wiping the sweat from his brow, enters his homely dwelling, ten by twelve perhaps, and while his wife darns the breeches that he is to wear to-morrow, his daughter regales him, on guitar or piano, with "Woodman, spare that tree," or some other popular ditty of similar dimensions.

Now, why, if "Woodman, spare that tree," be poetry at all, why should it not be poetry quite as much for the people, as a ballad-the subject of which is, especially, the village blacksmith, or the village baker? It is very certain that the song, with its few merits, is a sufficiently popular

It enters into the ordinary sentiment. It appeals to the simplest experience of the individual, and, if it has any popularity aside from the easy music by which it is commended, it is because it expresses feelings of ordinary affection, and a nature which the simplest mind can understand. The fact is, the great error under which these ingenious philosophers fall, is that which proposes to make a distinction between the individual and the political man,-between the man, as a person, endowed with all the usual attributes of humanity, affection, hope, fear, and senses and passions more or less active and elevated,—and man as an element of the masses, as a thing of numbers-a mere noun of multitude, the unsegregated limb of the great political beast, whose name is Legion.

This is the very great mistake. When Mr. Longfellow writes his verses about a blacksmith-among the poorest verses, by the way, that ever escaped his pen,-always excepting the niaisieri about negro slavery-his appeals are not to any of the characteristics of his trade ;-he does not propose to speak of his moral and social nature as influenced in any way by that:-very far from it. Apart from the adjuncts of flaming forge, and brawny arm, all the material is drawn from the laborer as a mere man-as a human being-a respect in which he does not differ in a solitary jot, from his grace the Duke of Wellington, or his more Superior Highness, the present prudent king of the French. Whatever, written by whatsoever poet,-relates to the feelings and concerns of humanity, readily enters into the

general sense-readily appeals to the individual sensibility— moves to tears or laughter-to reflection or levity-and will have its effect quite as much on the John Smiths of society, as upon the Landsdownes and Melbournes and D'Orsays of the aristocracy. Nay, for that matter, this new mode of stating the case, if permitted, would make sad havoc of all established poetical reputation. It has been from the naturalness of the poet-so we have been taught to think-that his successes were derived. It was because he was the speaker of the great inner truths of nature-the finder of the open secret-the seer who could see where the water lay in the rock, and by whose divining hand it was made to gush forth for the refreshment of all sorts of people! It is new to us that Dan Homer, and that "household voice”— the divine Shakspeare, are less people's poets, because the world has decreed that they shall be held divine. It will be a sorry day for that poor bamboozled animal man, which is to tutor him into the adoption of poetical Gods, not of the likeness and not of the authority of these. We have not the smallest objection that Ebenezer Elliott shall be counted a man of mark—a useful man-in his day and generation. He has written some sensible verses,-is a shrewd questioner-will do good no doubt; but we must resent and resist the impertinence-the downright damnable heresy-which prates to us of his peculiar fitness for the people, as a poet,— in obvious disparagement to the claims of the glorious train of Fathers-a sacred Host-whose undying strains, appealing to all the best human affections, are happily calculated, as they recognize only the one great family of man, to promote common sentiments of truth, and peace, and good will, among them-a result very likely to be disturbed by any attempt to individualize classes-to call forth especially poets for butchers, bakers and blacksmiths,-persons, to whom, it were the far better and more appropriate business of the poet, to teach the common laws of our nature—the superior sentiments which should lift the species, and not the degrading and slavish ones, which make their appeals to classes, and the lowly motives and associations which belong to and influence their petty concerns of trade.

It is denied that Ebenezer Elliott is so much the poet of the people, as the poet of the politician and the party. The Iroof of this is to be found in the fact that he has no popuarity in America-that he is little read-that, up to this

time, so far as we know, the American publishers, sufficiently avid after works likely to have ready sale-have not thought it worth while to put forth a solitary edition of his writings. They come to us in the English originals, and may be found, here and there, in the hands of a select and solitary few, who, by the way, belong rather to our politicians than our people. In England, he is popular to a certain degree; but not because of his poetry. It is because he writes against government,-appeals to the prejudices of a class, and writes, no doubt, sound politicial truths, which, we venture to predict, would find a hundred readers to one were they put in simple, direct and old-fashioned English prose. Burns was a poet for the people, though we cannot now call to mind any of his verses, in which he specially refers to the occupations of the poor or the working classes. His references to the plough furnish no exception to the remark. Agriculture, has always been a poetical subject since the days of Hesiod-is poetical apart from the laborer, in its adjuncts of field and meadow, hallowing sky, pure health, its songbirds and its sunshine-and surely, he who followed the plough, or urged the more strenuous labors of the axe, could enjoy and feel the poetry of the scene and subject, without claiming to be especially singled out and apostrophized himself. So, equally, could he enjoy the Homeric strains which described a blacksmith's labor-very different strains from that "people's song" of Mr. Longfellow—which showed us how the glorious shield of Achilles was put together what were the toils of Vulcan upon it-what were the detailed images which it bore, and the struggle which followed, as to who should be its final possessor. Put that poetry into the hands-ears, we should say-of the blacksmith, or any workman, and we fancy he will feel it to be quite as fine and forcible, as any thing in the very shrewd, and spirited, and sensible--but nothing farther-collections of Mr. Ebenezer Elliott.

We have some fault to find with the author of the volume before us, precisely of the kind which we have urged above; not to the same extent, it is true-but of like character, and subject to objections not dissimilar to those which have been intimated. What does the title of this volume suggest and require? Poems, on Man, as an American citizen! Very well!-the object is an ambitious one, and, could we be satisfied of its perfect propriety, a very noble one. Mr. Mathews