MARVEL. We are captivated by no charms of description in the histories of Guicciardini or Machiavelli; we are detained by no peculiarities of character; we hear a clamorous scuffle in the street, and we close the door. How different the historians of antiquity! We read Sallust, and always are incited by the desire of reading on, although we are surrounded by conspirators and barbarians; we read Livy, until we imagine we are standing in an august pantheon, covered with altars and standards, over which are the four fatal letters* that spellbound all mankind. We step forth again among the modern Italians; here we find plenty of rogues, plenty of receipts for making more; and little else. In the best passages we come upon a crowd of dark reflections, which scarcely a glimmer of glory pierces through; and we stare at the tenuity of the spectres, but never at their altitude. Give me the poetical mind, the mind poetical in all things; give me the poetical heart, the heart of hope and confidence, that beats the more strongly and resolutely under the good thrown down, and raises up fabric after fabric on the same foundation.-PARKER. At your time of life, Mr Marvel? -MARVEL. At mine, my lord Bishop! I have lived with Milton. Such creative and redeeming spirits are like kindly and renovating Nature. Volcano comes after volcano, yet covereth she with herbage and foliage, with vine and olive, and with whatever else refreshes and gladdens her, the Earth that has been gasping under the exhaustion of her throes.'

'Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting. (Marvel's definition of the statesmen of his time.)

I have usually found, that those who make faults of foibles, and crimes of faults, have within themselves an impulse toward worse; and give ready way to such impulse whenever they can, secretly or safely. There is a gravity which is not austere nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy, nor dwells in contraction of heart, but arises from tenderness and hangs upon reflection.'

Usually men, in distributing fame, do as old maids and old misers do; they give every thing to those who want nothing. In literature, often a man's solitude, and oftener his magnitude, disinclines us from helping him if we find him down. We are fonder of warming our hands at a fire already in a blaze than of blowing one.'

I know that Milton, and every other great poet, must be religious; for there is nothing so godlike as a love of order, with a power of bringing great things into it.'

'PARKER. When I ride or walk, I never carry loose money about me, lest, through an inconsiderate benevolence, I be tempted in some such

*S. P. Q. R.

manner to misapply it. To be robbed, would give me as little or less concern. MARVEL. A man's self is often his worst robber. He steals from his own bosom and heart what God has there deposited, and he hides it out of his way, as dogs and foxes do with bones. But the robberies we commit on the body of our superfluities, and store up in vacant places, in places of poverty and sorrow, these, whether in the dark or in the daylight, leave us neither in nakedness nor in fear, are marked by no burning-iron of conscience, are followed by no scourge of reproach; they never deflower prosperity, they never distemper sleep.'

'I do not like to hear a man cry out with pain; but I would rather hear one than twenty. Sorrow is the growth of all seasons; we had much, however, to relieve it. Never did our England, since she first emerged from the ocean, rise so high above surrounding nations. The rivalry of Holland, the pride of Spain, the insolence of France, were thrust back by one finger each; yet those countries were then more powerful than they had ever been. The sword of Cromwell was preceded by the mace of Milton-by that mace which, when Oliver had rendered his account, opened to our contemplation the garden-gate of Paradise. And there were some around not unworthy to enter with him. In the compass of sixteen centuries, you will not number on the whole earth so many wise and admirable men as you could have found united in that single day, when England showed her true magnitude, and solved the question, Which is most, one or a million? There were giants in those days; but giants who feared God, and not who fought against him.'-(Marvel describing the days of the English Commonwealth.)

PARKER. Our children may expect from Lord Clarendon a fair account of the prime movers in the late disturbances.-MARVEL. He knew but one party, and saw it only in its gala suit. He despises those whom he left on the old litter; and he fancies that all who have not risen want the ability to rise. No doubt, he will speak unfavourably of those whom I most esteem: be it so: if their lives and writings do not controvert him, they are unworthy of my defence. Were I upon terms of intimacy with him, I would render him a service, by sending him the best translations, from Greek and Latin authors, of maxims left us by the wisest men ; maxims which my friends held longer than their fortunes, and dearer than their lives. And are the vapours of such quagmires as Clarendon to overcast the luminaries of mankind? Should a Hyde lift up, I will not say his hand, I will not say his voice, should he lift up his eyes, against a Milton?-PARKER. Mr Milton would have benefited the world much more by coming into its little humours, and by complying with it cheerfully.-MARVEL. As the needle turns away from the rising sun, from the meridian, from the occidental, from regions of fragrancy and gold and gems, and moves with unerring impulse to the frosts and deserts of the north, so Milton and some few others, in politics, philosophy, and religion, walk through the busy multitude, wave aside the importunate trader, and, after a momentary oscillation from ex

ternal agency, are found in the twilight and in the storm, pointing with certain index to the pole-star of immutable truth.'

'PARKER. We are all of us dust and ashes.-MARVEL. True, my lord! but in some we recognise the dust of gold and the ashes of the phoenix; in others the dust of the gateway and the ashes of turf and stubble. With the greatest rulers upon earth, head and crown drop together, and are overlooked. It is true, we read of them in history; but we also read in history of crocodiles and hyænas. With great writers, whether in poetry or prose, what falls away is scarcely more or other than a vesture. The features of the man are imprinted on his works; and more lamps burn over them, and more religiously, than are lighted in temples or churches. Milton, and men like him, bring their own incense, kindle it with their own fire, and leave it unconsumed and unconsumable; and their music, by day and by night, swells along a vault commensurate with the vault of heaven.-PARKER. Mr Marvel, I am admiring the extremely fine lace of your cravat.'

PARKER. Let us piously hope, Mr Marvel, that God, in his good time, may turn Mr Milton from the error of his ways, and incline his heart to repentance, and that so he may finally be prepared for death.— MARVEL. The wicked can never be prepared for it, the good always are. What is the preparation which so many ruffled wrists point out? To gabble over prayer and praise, and confession and contrition. My lord! Heaven is not to be won by short hard work at the last, as some of us take a degree at the university, after much irregularity and negligence. I prefer a steady pace from the outset to the end, coming in cool, and dismounting quietly. Instead of which, I have known many old playfellows of the devil spring up suddenly from their beds, and strike at him treacherously; while he, without a cuff, laughed and made grimaces in the corner of the room.'

'I am confident that Milton is heedless of how little weight he is held by those who are of none; and that he never looks toward those somewhat more eminent, between whom and himself there have crept the waters of oblivion. As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious. In fame he will be happier than in friendship. Were it possible that one among the faithful of the angels could have suffered wounds and dissolution in his conflict with the false, I should scarcely feel greater awe at discovering on some bleak mountain the bones of this our mighty defender, once shining in celestial panoply, once glowing at the trumpet-blast of God, but not proof against the desperate and the damned, than I have felt at entering the humble abode of Milton, whose spirit already reaches heaven, yet whose corporeal frame hath no quiet or safe resting-place here below. And shall not I, who loved him early, have the lonely and sad privilege

to love him still? or shall fidelity to power be a virtue, and fidelity to tribulation an offence?'

'PARKER. The nation in general thanks him little for what he has been doing.—MARVEL. Men who have been unsparing of their wisdom, like ladies who have been unfrugal of their favours, are abandoned by those who owe most to them, and hated or slighted by the rest. I wish beauty in her lost estate had consolations like genius.-PARKER. Fie, fie, Mr Marvel! Consolations for frailty!-MARVEL. What wants them more? The reed is cut down, and seldom does the sickle wound the hand that cuts it. There it lies, trampled on, withered, and soon to be blown away.'

We cannot leave Mr Landor at a more auspicious time than when these lofty strains of wisdom and humanity are lingering around us. The author and outpourer of such, stands apart from ordinary writers, and will be known, esteemed, and listened to, when all the rubbish of light and fashionable reading, which has so choked up our generation, shall have passed away. He has himself somewhere finely said, that the voice comes deepest from the sepulchre, and a great name has its root in the dead body. He is doubtless, for himself, well content to obey that law. But this Collection of his Writings has reminded us, for our own part, not to wait until deaf the praised ear, and 'mute the tuneful tongue.' Others, let us hope, will follow our example. And thus, while Mr Landor yet lives, he may hear what is violent and brief in his writings forgiven-what is wise, tranquil, and continuous, gratefully accepted-and may know that he has not vainly striven for those high rewards which he has so frequently and fully challenged. Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any-without fame there is none for the best.'

ART. X.-An Essay on the Government of Dependencies. By GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS, Esq. 8vo. London: 1841.

Go OVERNMENTS are subject to many cross divisions. With reference to the number of persons by whom power is exercised, they may be divided into Monarchical, Aristocratic, Democratic, and Mixed; with reference to the amount of power, into Supreme and Subordinate; with reference to the seat of government, into Domestic and Foreign. In our review of Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, we considered the first of these divisions. In the following pages we shall consider the second; taking as our text-book the original and profound work of Mr Lewis, named at the head of this article.

Mr Lewis begins by an inquiry into the nature of the powers of a sovereign government, and the modes in which they may be exercised and delegated. To these powers he assigns no limit but physical impossibility, and the will of the people—a doctrine once questioned but now generally admitted.

6

The modes,' he adds, by which a sovereign government may exercise its powers, can be conveniently reduced to the four fol lowing heads-First, it may exercise its powers in the way of legislation. Secondly, it may exercise its powers by special • commands or acts intended to carry into effect a pre-existing law. Thirdly, it may exercise its powers by special commands or • acts not intended to carry into effect a pre-existing law. Fourthly, it may exercise its powers by inquiring into some fact or facts, for the purpose of guiding its conduct in some measure or proceeding, falling under one of the three heads just enumerated. These four powers may be respectively styled the legislative, executive, arbitrary, and inquisitorial powers ' of a sovereign government.'-(P. 6.)

It appears to us, that a more convenient arrangement will be to divide the powers of government, and the acts by which they are exercised, into two great classes,-legislative and executive; and to consider what Mr Lewis terms arbitrary and inquisitorial powers, a mere subdivision of executive power.

According to this nomenclature, the legislative power is exercised by issuing general commands binding the whole community, or, in other words, Laws. The executive power, by issuing special commands addressed to one or more individuals. Executive acts must then be subjected to two cross divisions. In the first place, they may be legal or arbitrary. A legal executive act is a special command authorized by the existing law. An arbitrary executive act is a special command not authorized by