of implication and construction-a process of usurpation, far more alarming and dangerous to the integrity of the original contract. "But," says Mr. Webster, "did Massachusetts propose the Carolina remedy during the embargo-did she threaten to interfere by State interference, and by State authority to annul the laws of the Union?" This was scarcely necessary when the embargo laws were nullified by the force of public opinion, and when not a conviction, we believe, could have been obtained, in cases of their violation, in her courts. To have nullified under such circumstances, would not only have been an act of supererogation, but an act of folly in incurring useless hazards. But did not Massachusetts declare an act of Congress, passed "in pursuance of the Constitution," placing her militia, by requisition of the President, under the command of the officers of the United States army, null? And did she not make this nullification good, by keeping these troops in the field, under the command of her own officers? Did she not, moreover, declare the embargo laws void, as it respected her coasting trade? It is well known that during the continuance of these laws, Massachusetts had just as much trade as could escape the small naval force the government had upon her coast, which force, in fact, furnished scarcely any means of preventing the illicit intercourse which she carried on with the enemy, with an unblushing boldness, which neither sought concealment or feared reproach. That at this period, and at a more exigent one, (during the war) the abstract principle was maintained by her public men and by her constituted authorities, that unconstitutional laws were, ipso facto, void, and that a State had a right to declare them so, are points too notorious to be denied, from the facts we have just stated. If she did not put her veto, in toto, on the embargo and non-intercouse acts, it was because these laws, as far as she was concerned, were repealed by her own measures within her limits. From her coterminous territory, she carried on a lucrative trade with the enemy, and she was so far at peace with him as to make no effort to recover a part even of her own soil, which he had, in violation of the spirit of concord subsisting between them, ungenerously filched away. To have nullified the war, would have been a bootless effort, for it was nullified, as far as Massachusetts was concerned, within her limits. Nullification would not have compelled the other States to make peace. We are quite sure, our readers will pardon us, for not running this parallel out. We seek no justification of the course which South-Carolina now pursues in the conduct which Mas sachusetts may have adopted when an enemy was thundering on our coasts, firing our towns, and dipping their hands in the blood of our citizens. No-if we can find no other authority for our doctrines, we are content to regard ours as a new case. Mr. Webster may keep his precedents with his versions of the federal compact for Massachusetts, whenever her hour may come again. We want none of them, whilst at the same time, we cannot refrain from pitying the obliquity of that man who can perceive no difference in the attitude of a State declaring her right of resistance to a violation of a compact to which she is a sovereign party, in a particular, vital to her interests, in a period of profound peace, propitious not only to the consideration of her complaints, but to rendering her perfect justice, and the position of a State, during a war levied mainly for the protection of her own rights and interests, who palsies the arm of its common country and nerves the hand of its common enemy. The Hartford Convention may have been "the most august and enlightened assembly" that ever convened, and, if we mistake not, Mr. Webster assisted at its democratic absolution at Salem; if we are in error in this particular, we are quite sure a distinguished jurisconsult of the Supreme Court did. We have no reproaches to make against this body-we know that there were many virtuous and enlightened persons in that assembly, all that we have to remark is, that if we were disposed. "to void our rheum" upon its grave, we could say nothing half so bitter, so contumelious, so reproachful as the cold and sardonic cut which Mr. Webster gives to his allies in this Convention; when in the hour of their utmost need he refused even to close the eyes of "the good Darius." The "collects of Abbeville and Colleton" read us no such precepts or furnish us no such examples of the firmness and fidelity of friendshipnor will they, of the moral fitness of holding such assemblies at such a period as marked with a dark shadow the assembly of this memorable convention. When the people of the South hold a convention, no hostile thunder, no hostile step will be heard upon our shores, our banners will wave in the calm sunshine of peace, and when we demand justice at the hands of our oppressors, those hands will not be employed in repelling the invaders of our soil. Mr. Webster has been pleased to save us an infinity of trouble, by drawing out, for the State of South-Carolina, all the details of nullification. He has sketched these incidents with the minuteness with which the plan of a campaign would have been adjusted in the etat major of Berthier, or Gesnean. The diagram is invested, above all, with "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war"-and that nothing might be wanting to its solemnity, he has hung up, as a scarecrow, in the very "pith and moment" of the battle, the effigy of John Fries on the gallows, as quite a fitting admonition, to tell us of "the sort of hemp tax, worse than any part of the tariff," we shall pay if we dare to resist the unconstitutional legislation of the unlimited government of which he is the Ajax Telamon. Whenever SouthCarolina nullifies, she will not take her projet from Mr. Webster's draft. With great soberness we might ask Mr. Webster whether he is so badly read in the history of his own country as not to know, that to the rebellion in which Fries figured with so luckless a distinction, the State of Pennsylvania as a State was no party, that it was a mere domestic and tumultuous insurrection of some of her citizens acting under the cover of no law of hers, against an indisputably constitutional law of the Union, and that to put down this insurrection, she sent her own quota of militia into the field? Do we understand Mr. Webster to say, that a citizen acting under a law of his own State, passed in her sovereign capacity, ratified by her courts of justice, if taken in arms for defending her under this law, can be punished for treason against the United States? We know not in what book of international law he has found, that a sovereign State can commit treason or rebellion, or that her citizens, acting under her sovereign will, can commit treason in defending her? He will probably answer, that according to the Constitution, “treason against the United States, consists in levying war against them"-but, how, if the United States levy war first? Do the rights of nature or our allegiance to the Supreme Court require, that we should be shot down like unresisting bullocks in the field, until our "much approved good masters" have expended for our benefit just as much powder and lead as may suit either their humanity or the state of their military chest? Mr. Webster may hang this scarecrow, if he will, wherever the supremacy of the General Government is acknowledged, but we are much mistaken, if it is calculated to produce alarm in those quarters for whose especial amendment and reformation it may have been designed. We have not considered it necessary to notice Mr. Webster's closing rejoinder to Mr. Hayne, because beyond his seizing on a mere quibble by imputing to his opponent the concession, "that the General Government was a party to the compact,' it contains no ground which he did not previously occupy. That the whole debate is creditable to the talents and eloquence of both gentlemen, the most prejudiced political enemy of either will not deny. If we have not more frequently referred to Mr. Hayne's speech for a better illustration of our argument than any thing we could furnish ourselves, it is because we know that all that he has said was familiar to our readers, and hence they might desire to have the same topics presented in a different, though in a less powerful or alluring light. That Mr. Hayne maintained the true text of the Constitution, on which our political and civil liberties depend, we have as little doubt as we can have of the slavish doctrines, which Mr. Webster attempted to uphold, by conferring on the Government of this Confederacy an unlimited supremacy. In this task, truth, eternal and immutable truth, has decreed that the Constitution, like the Bible, should survive the apocryphal labours of its commentators, and flourish in the beauty and the vigour of immortal life. ART. VII.-Milton's Familiar Letters. Translated from the Latin, with Notes. By JOHN HALL. 1 vol. 8vo. E. Littel. Philadelphia. 1829. THE writings of Milton have been so admirably criticised of late years, and his moral and literary character has been placed in such various and striking lights, that it would require great boldness and still greater power to sketch any new picture of the man, or to coin any new phrases expressive of our admiration of his compositions. But although we are not free to break forth into rapture at the overwhelming force and eloquence of his prose, or the sublimity and harmony of his poetry, we shall nevertheless undertake the humbler but as necessary task of defending him from one of his friends and admirers. Nothing induces us to notice the production before us, but the very limited circulation of Milton's Prose Works in our country, and the fear, lest some, too imperfect in education or too indolent in disposition to judge for themselves, should mistake this translation for a fair specimen of his style, either of thought or expression. In England, such a book as this would fall still born from the press; and even in this country, imperfect as we are in classical attainments, could we insure every reader of this translation, a sight of the original, we should scarcely deem a flapper necessary to invite the attention to its glaring deficiencies. It would seem that Mr. Hall has somewhere lighted upon the "Epistolæ Familiares" of Milton, and discovering that they were really worth reading, has thought it "unaccountable that they have been heretofore neglected and almost unmentioned," and forthwith proceeds to give this treasure trove to the American public, "having no reason to think that he has been anticipated." But here, unfortunately, commences our author's misinformation, for had he taken some little pains to look about him, he might have saved us the trouble of this criticism, and himself a most unfavourable comparison with the felicitous versions which Wrangham and Fellowes have made of these very letters. But there is yet another and more fearful comparison which Mr. Hall, in common with every one who undertakes the translation of an author from a foreign to his native tongue, is obliged, necessarily, to undergo-the comparison of his version with the vernacular writings of his original. The beauties of language and style, which have lent their charms to the English compositions of Milton, will be required of his translator, and the reader will not be satisfied with any thing short of the idea he may himself have formed of their excellence. Private and familiar letters especially demand the preservation of the peculiar tone and spirit of their author, as they are presumed to be unstudied and therefore natural transcripts of his feelings and opinions during the periods which they illustrate. We will first examine Mr. Hall's book with a view to discover how far he has preserved the Miltonian character of these letters, so visible even through the disguise of a foreign language, classically written. We quote from the first letter of this collection "Deinde, cum ex vehementissimo, quo tui afficior desiderio, adesse te semper cogitem, teque tanquam præsentem alloquar et intuear, dolorique meo (quod in amore fere fit) vana quadam præsentiæ tuæ imaginatione ablandiar; vereor profecto, simulac litteras ad te mittendas meditarer, ne in mentem mihi subito veniret, quam longinquo a me distes terrarum intervallo; atque ita recrudesceret dolor absentiæ tuæ jam prope consopitus, somniumque dulce discuteret.” Mr. Hall has constructed, out of the ruins of this fine passage, the following involved and inharmonious sentence "And as the strong affection which I have for you, enables me, at any time, to bring you before me, and see you and address you as if you were present, I can console my sorrow (as is usual in love) with the bare imagination of your company, though, indeed, I fear that as soon |