and to call them " great and peculiar faults," is to subject himself to the charge of a want of good sense as well as good breeding, from which no elegance of style or poignancy of periods can save him.

The picture which this critic has drawn of our literature, although certainly aggravated to a caricature, has more resemblance of the truth.-"Now," says he "tho' we are certainly of opinion, that the second rate pamphleteers of that country, write incomparably better than Mr. Ashe-it is no doubt true, that America can produce nothing to bring her intellectual efforts into any sort of comparison with that (meaning, I suppose those) of Europe." I fancy that Mr. Hammond, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Rose, must have shrunk and shaken their heads, in token of dissent, when they read this period. The writer proceedsLiberty and competition have as yet done nothing to stimulate literary genius in these republican states. They have never passed the limits of humble mediocrity, either in thought or expression."-Then follows a personality which I do not choose to repeat. He then proceeds-"In short, Federal America has done nothing, either to extend, diversify or embellish the sphere of human knowledge. Though all she has written, were obliterated from the records of learning, there would, if we except the works of Franklin"—(for the suppression of which en pas sant a corrupt attempt was made in England, to save, I suppose, the necessity of this exception,) "be no positive diminution either of the useful or agreeable. The destruction of her whole literature," (always excepting, I suppose, those parts of Franklin's works, which escaped the meditated destruction,)" would not occasion so mucli regret as we feel for the loss of a few leaves from an ancient classic."

Then follows a paragraph which exhibits a most palpable and ludicrous struggle between the disengenuousness & conscience of the critic; between the complex and conflicting duties of lashing Mr. Ashe for lashing the Americans, and at the same time inflicting the lash on them himself; between those sweeping censures by which the critic was disposed to exterminate every thing like talents from this country, and the strong and glaring evidence of the reverse, which he dared not for his own sake directly to deny. Mark the labor and discord of the paragraph, and let the reader, when he has finished it, ask himself, what clear and definite opinion of America can be deduced from it. "But notwithstanding all this, we really cannot agree with Mr. Ashe, in thinking the Americans absolute ly incapable or degenerate; and are rather (reluctantly,

I suppose) inclined to think, that when their neighborhood thickens, and their opulence ceases to depend upon exertion, they will show something of the same talents to which it is a part of our duty to do justice to ourselves." At present, then, it seems we have slewn nothing of these talents; but let us see the residue of the paragraph, that we may learn what talents we have shewn. And we are more inclined to adopt this favorable opinion, from considering that her history has already furnished occasions for the display of talents of a high order; and that in the ordinary business of government, she displays no mean share of ability and eloquence."-Then it seems that talents for war and the ordinary business of government are no part of the talents to which it is the duty of those critics to do justice among themselves-in other words, are no part of the talents of their country; for since we have shewn talents of a high order for war; and some talents for the ordinary business of government; and yet have shewn nothing of those talents to which it is a part: (an oppressive part, no doubt,) of the duty of those modest gentlemen to do justice among themselves, it follows that talents for war and the ordinary business of government, are no part of their talents. A concession which, altho', • at the present day, merely due to truth, would have done more credit to the critic, had it flowed spontaneously from his candor, instead of being wrung from his agonies and embarrassments.

But I should be glad to know what this gentleman means by the ordinary business of government, on which he has paid us the penurious and reluctant compliment in question? Does he mean by it, the exploit of the old continental congress, in guiding the bark of state through the revolutionary storm, amid all the rocks and shoals which surrounded them? Does he consider the formation of such a constitution as that of the United States, the ordinary business of government? Or does he consider it a part of this ordinary business, to preserve the peace and honor and prosperity of a nation, inviolate, under the present state of morals in the belligerent world?

This critic, however, very graciously and very sagely predicts, that whenever opulence ceases to depend on exertion, we shall shew something too, of the same talents to which it is a part of their duty to do justice among themselves. What kind of talents does he mean? Does he mean such talents as those which were displayed by Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Otway, &c.? If so ; I would ask whether those were men, whose opulence had ceased to depend on exertion? Were they not, on the cong

trary, men who lived by their talents, who wrote for their daily bread, and one of whom, actually, died for the want of it? Who are the professors, historiographers, politicians, lawyers, doctors and divines who have done the highest honor to British literature and British genius? Men, who in the beginning, at least, of their career, and as to many of them, during their brightest displays, were so far from opulence, as to depend on those very displays for their subsistence? What those talents are, then, to the display of which opulence is necessary, to which it is a part of those gentlemens' duty to do justice among themselves, and of which also they kindly prophecy that we shall shew something, when our opulence ceases to depend on exertion, it is not easy to devise; unless, indeed, they be those talents which their opulent aldermen display at a Lord Mayor's feast; or those talents which their wealth bribes into their service, and which are employed in flapping and amusing their fatuity, in feeding their spleen, in feasting their vices, and pampering their pride, individual and national, at the expense of truth and justice and virtue? These, I would fain hope, are not the talents of which it is a part of those gentlemen's duty to do justice among themselves.

Instead, however, of exasperating myself and my readers still more, by dwelling on the rude and insolent stric tures of this critic, it is the part of wisdom to turn them to our profit. Some one has said, that when his enemies reproached him, he considered with himself, first, whether he deserved their reproaches-if he did not, he considered them as having been intended for some one elsebut if he found that he did deserve them, he took care, by an immediate reformation to deserve them no longer, and thus he made his enemies, in spite of themselves, tributary to his advantage. Thus let us act towards this Reviewer of Mr. Ashe.

That our manners and our morality are equal to those of Great Britain, ought not to be enough-we need to have advanced a very little way in either to be able, to make that boast with truth. Our enquiry should be, have we no faults which care and exertion might prune away? Are there no graces and delicacies of action, which a little culture might introduce? Are the sources of literature beyond our reach? Or is it not in our power to wipe away entirely the reproach which the British critic has in this respect thrown upon us?

To assist those enquiries and aid these exertions, are the objects with which this paper is begun. I shall fur

nish it from time to time, as occasions invite, and shall suspend and resume it, as my health and occupations may permit.

Number III.

Periculos, plenum, opus alex
Tractas, et incedis per ignes

Suppositos, cineri doloso.

Horace Lib. 11. Od. 1.

The task is full of peril, and you tread
On fire, with faithless ashes, overspread.

It is my custom, when I am meditating any step of importance, to hold a council of my children upon it, and after announcing the subject to them and giving them time for consideration, to take their opinions, seriatim (as the lawyers say) on the prudence and rectitude of the mea sure. By this course I give them a habit of circumspection, and at the same time, teach them, in the most practical and impressive form, the kinds of consideration which ought to influence and guide the conduct of a virtuous character. For some months past my life has been so stagnant that I have had no occasion to call a board: the project of publishing this paper, however, at length afforded one; and some of the members being absent, I collected their opinions through the channel of the mail, before I had prepared the first number. A serious division occurred among the members: the arguments for and against the publication were strenuously urged and as my boys have exposed, in a manner, at least, as luminous and entertaining as any that I could adopt, à subject which I am now desirous of laying before the reader, I will, without farther introduction, give their letters, as I received them the first is from the youngest, Galen; who seems, on this occasion, to have changed professions with his brother, since he shews as much of the cold caution of a special pleader, as Alfred does of the happy rashness of a knight of the lancet.

*********, December 10, 1810. "I regret extremely, my dear Uncle, that I united with my brother in pressing you to subscribe for the Edinburgh

Review, since it has had the effect of stimulating you to endanger the repose of your age by commencing author. The die, however, is not yet cast: and let me conjure you, my dear uncle, by your fireside, your altars, your household gods and every thing sacred to peace, to dismiss the idea forever. I am sure that you do me the justice to believe that I understand, clearly and distinctly, the purity, the patriotism, the philanthrophy of the motives that have suggested this design to you. But I am persuaded that the benevolent purposes which you have in view will not be answered; while the attempt will draw upon, you the displeasure and hostility of many, who either do not know you, now, or if they do, look upon you, at present, with complacency and friendship.

My first position is that the purposes which you contemplate will not be answered: I understand these purposes to be, to refine the manners and stimulate the literary curiosity of your countrymen. But, to produce either of these effects, your essays must be read; and when read, they must have such force and authority as to throw off from the state that leaden mountain of lethargy which has been accumulating for six and thirty years. In the first place, I believe you will not be read. I do not mean to say, my dear uncle, that you will not deserve to be read; because I am persuaded, that, inexperienced as I presume you are in all the mysteries and arts of authorship, yet the native warmth of your heart and correctness of your mind, would make you very interesting on every subject not invincibly repulsive in its nature. But I believe that in the present habits of our country, every ethical work is of this nature; that there is an inherent repulsion in didactic moral writing which no talents or address can vanquish, and that the reader will instinctively turn away from the essay the instant he discovers it to be of that character.

But suppose that you could cast a plan and strike upon a manner so captivating as to ensure you readers, is it not to be feared that this country is too fixed in its habits to be moved by the power of any pen? Can any genius rouse them from the torpor of indolence in which they are sunk, or exorcise the demon of avarice which possesses them?

Let it be admitted, however, that one or two docile readers, here and there, might be awakened to their benefit, by your labors will this be an equivalent for those perils and losses which you must infallibly encounter? I repeat it infallibly; because I believe it will be impossible for you to avoid personalities, or, at least, the imputation of them: and either way you must make enemies and many of them.