although his eloquence, no doubt, contributed very much to the result, yet, the brunt of the obnoxious and memorable debate was certainly borne by Cato. In his forensic speeches, Cicero frequently had, as has been already observed, the advantage of Demosthenes, in every thing connected with the importance of the occasion, and the splendor of imposing circumstances. It is difficult, for example, to imagine a finer opportunity for the display of that sort of eloquence than was afforded him by the trial of Milo. The shops were all shut up, and their tenants gathered about the tribunal-judges of the highest dignity and authority appointed-Pompey, empowered by a special commission from the Senate to superintend the proceedings-a body of armed men, arrayed about the forum, to overawe the vast multitude two parties, animated with the inveterate passions of a death-feud and the memory of many an unrevenged wrong, brought together, and only prevented from coming into open conflict, by the presence of a superior force. Milo, behaving with the same reckless and uncompromising hardihood that had distinguished him in all his contests with the demagogue whom he had cut off in the midst of his guilty career-above all, the orator himself, looking upon his client as a hero worthy to be had in everlasting honour, and execrating the deceased at once as the common pest of society, and as the unprovoked, implacable and too successful author of his own sufferings and dishonor.'The speech which Cicero delivered, on that occasion is known to have been a failure; but the inspiration of the scene did not pass away with it, and the published defence of Milo is, as it was considered by himself and his contemporaries, decidedly his master-piece-excepting, always, the second oration against Mark Antony. But forensic eloquence, we repeat it, cannot rise to the sublimity of the deliberative, on such subjects and occasions as those which inspired the genius of Demosthenes. What was the banishment of Milo, to the destruction of the liberties of Greece? What was Clodius, with all his insolence and crimes, to the ambitious, the indefatigable, the unconquerable "man of Pella?" Could the orator, in holding up to the execration of mankind, the outrages of that pestilent ruffian have ventured as Demosthenes did, to swear by those who had fallen in fields of glory-at Zama or Thrasymene? Great occasions, while they excite and exalt genius, produce, as they require, a more severe taste. It is a remark of M. Auger, the French translator of Demosthenes, that many of the political harangues delivered in the States-General, convened during the reign of Charles VIII. are, in every point of view, VOL. II.-No. 4. 68 admirable-while the nation had as yet no sure and disciplined taste for true eloquence, and its forensic oratory especially was overrun with all manner of abominations. He accounts for this difference by the important interests which were involved in the discussions of the legislative assembly, while the advocates, comparatively unconcerned in the subjects of their pleadings, felt at liberty to indulge their genius in the extravagancies and conceits so much in vogue at that time. It is surprising to us, that in his parallel of Cicero and Demosthenes, he did not think of applying this just observation. Our own Declaration of Independence has always struck us as another remarkable example of the same thing. What is the merit of that immortal paper? The same which characterizes all the works of true genius-especially where it has produced them on great occasions-a severe and sublime simplicity. Any attempt at eloquence any ornament or prettiness-would not only have been out of place, but altogether contemptible and revolting. Accordingly, it is a curious fact, that the very few passages in the original draught which did savor a little of fine writing, and which the late Mr. Adams thought the best part of the composition, were struck out of it by Congress or the committee. Those grave statesmen thought the subject quite too serious for rhetoric the bare recital of facts they wisely considered as the highest and the only eloquence which was consistent with the character of the occasion-an occasion destined to form one of the most important æras in the history of nations. In closing this long discussion of the comparative merits of Cicero and Demosthenes, which we thought best adapted fully to explain our ideas of the peculiar style of the former, it is scarcely necessary to repeat that when we speak of his inferiority to the Greek orator, we mean rigorously to confine ourselves to the very terms we use. We have no doubt, that if the Athenian could have found a rival in any one, it would have been in Cicero. And so, as to the accidental circumstances, which we suppose to have given him an advantage over the Roman orator-the character of his audience, the subjects and the occasions-the latter enjoyed them, we conceive, in greater perfection than they ever existed in any where else but at Athens. When we first began to prepare the materials of this article, we purposed extending our remarks to the philosophical and epistolary writings of Cicero, as well as to his conduct and fortunes in private and in public life. But we shall have to avail ourselves of some future occasion to accomplish so extensive an undertaking. Yet without doing so, we can convey to our readers but an inadequate idea of his unrivalled gifts and excel lencies. We have still to show the distinguishing peculiarity of this extraordinary man, viz. that the perfection of his talents was not, as is usually the case, impaired by their variety. His genius, though diffused over a vast surface, shone as brightly and intensely upon every part of it, as if it had been concentrated upon a single object. Whatever he undertook, he seemed born particularly to excel in, and his works on different subjects and in different styles, are so many master-pieces. In a word, if one were called to name the man, in all history, who had made the most of great natural gifts-in whom, the effects of that perfect intellectual discipline, which brings out and developes and matures every talent, and "the mind through all her powers irradiates," he could scarcely fail to ascribe that enviable distinction to Cicero. In style especially, he fully comes up to his own definition of an eloquent man. Is erit igitur eloquens (ut idem illud iteremus) qui poterit parva summissè, modica temperatè, magna graviter dicere. In the course of the preceding observations, we have frequently alluded to the Attic and Asiatic styles. We are indebted for the most satisfactory account of these to the rhetorical writings of Cicero, which are published in Ernesti's edition of his works, in three octavo volumes, and which it is impossible to read without being astonished at the orator's thorough knowledge-a knowledge equally systematic, comprehensive and minute-of his own art. The beauties of the true Attic eloquence, he seems to have contemplated with delight and despair. Compared with the rouge and fard-the affected graces and meretricious decorations of the Asiatics-he represents it as the natural complexion of a sound and vigorous body "the purple light of youth"-beautiful, not so much in itself, as because it was associated with the ideas of robust strength and health, of which it was the effect and the index. The Asiatic style was of two very different kinds: the one sententious, pointed and epigrammatic-such, we suppose, as that of Tacitus or Seneca; the other ornate, redundant, florid and exaggerated. This latter prevailed chiefly in Cicero's time, and he mentions one of his instructors, Eschylus the Cnidian, as a specimen of it.* When Pollio and Brutus classed him with the Asiatics, they meant this latter division of them. That Cicero did not generally speak with an Attic severity of style, we have already shewn, as also the qualifications with which this opinion is to be received. But nothing could be more absurd than to associate his great name with the frigid * Brut. c. 95. and empty declaimers of a vicious school, and this judgment of the Pseudo-Attics of his own day, has been almost unanimously reversed by posterity. The censures of the hypercritical Pollio, he shared in common with others, among the first writers of Rome. What could he expect of one who turned up his nose at the provincialism-the patavinitas-of Titus Livius? The preference of the Attic to the Asiatic style, is founded, as Cicero himself remarks, upon the universal and unchangeable principles of nature. Taste is nothing but judgment— the severest and most exquisite judgment-applied to objects which produce the emotions of sublimity and beauty. It is only another form of common sense and the sense of propriety-and there is no reasoning or metaphysics half so acute and refining, as that which a good writer or speaker almost unconsciously applies to the merest minutiæ of style. This perception of what is fit and decorous, is the thing so much admired and studied under the name of elegance.* Two principles, among others, regulate its decisions. 1. Utility, which is the being able to give a reason for every thing that is done in a work of art, by pointing out the end it is designed to accomplish-for instance, the proportions, &c. of a pillar of the Corinthian or the Ionic order, are governed by the weight it is supposed to support, and such like considerations. Cicero developes this principle with great clearness and judgment. The second is, "that by a law of nature, whatever objects affect our senses most keenly at first, and afford us the highest pleasure, are most apt to produce satiety and disgust. How much more glaring and florid is the colouring of most modern paintings than that of the ancient? Yet however they strike us at first, they do not delight us long, whereas, there is a secret charm in the faded beauties of the old masters.'. The same observations apply to the objects of smelling, hearing and taste. "Thus in all things, the greatest pleasure is ever on the border of disgust; so that we ought the less to wonder that neither in poetry nor prose, is an ornate, ambitious and affected style, without variety or relief, in whatever brilliant colours it may array itself, destined to please long." This may be regarded as a fundamental canon of criticism. 2. It is by this test that the works of Cicero himself have been tried. It is the admiration of all cultivated nations, bestowed upon the classic models, for upwards of two thousand years together, that warrants the opinion that their simple beauties approach as near perfection, as it is given to man to come. * Caput est artis decere, ut dixit Roscius.-De Orat. lib. i. c. 29. ART. IX.-Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives, to which were referred the Messages of the President of the United States, of the 5th and 8th of February, and 2d March, 1827, with accompanying documents; and a Report and Resolutions of the Legislature of Georgia, March 3, 1827. Read and laid upon the table. FEW documents have been presented to Congress since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, more worthy of notice, than the one of which the title precedes this article. In it are involved the important inquiries-does the Federal Government or the State of Georgia possess the power to extinguish the titles to lands in the occupancy of Indian tribes, within the limits of that State? Is the power of entering into treaties with Indian tribes vested in the United States? Can a treaty, executed and ratified in due form by the contracting parties, the United States being one of them, by which valuable rights, under a solemn compact and for a valuable consideration, are conveyed to a State, be in any, and in what manner annulled, without the consent of the interested State? Can the President, when called upon, according to the fifth of the rules and articles of war, to arrest a military officer of the United States army, charged with having used contemptuous and disrespectful language towards the Governor of a State, exercise a discretion and refuse to comply with the requisition? By these topics, we should naturally be led to the consideration of the course of policy which ought to be observed towards the Aborigines of our country; and to inquire how the question of power, to which we have referred, between the United States and Georgia, is to be decided. In this article, we shall confine ourselves to examining, whether the power to extinguish the Indian title within the territory of Georgia, is vested in the United States or in that State; whether the Federal Government can constitutionally enter into treaties with Indian tribes; and to the expressing our opinion as to the manner in which the question between the United States and Georgia ought to be decided. It is said in the Report, that "In the event of the war of independence, the rights of the British Government devolved upon the United States. But a grave question arose, whether, in reference to the Indian tribes within the limits of any State, the right of exclusive sovereignty and exclusive pre-emption, formerly vested in the Crown, passed, in virtue of the declaration of |