Republics of Greece and Italy.-HAMILTON.

It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions, by which they were kept perpetually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrasts to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open themselves to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection, that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle as with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of overnment should pervert the direction and tarnish the istre of those bright talents and exalted endowments, for which the favoured soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated.

From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics, the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free governments as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans. Happily for mankind, stupendous fabrics, reared on the basis of liberty, which have flourished for ages, have, in a few instances, refuted their gloomy sophisms. And I trust America will be the broad and solid foundation of other edifices not less magnificent, which will be equally permanent monuments of their error.

But it is not to be denied, that the portraits they have sketched of republican government were but too just copies of the originals from which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends of liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of

government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments-the introduction of legislative balances and checks-the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behaviour -the representation of the people in the legislature, by deputies of their own election-these are either wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained, and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

Professional Character of William Pinkney.-
HENRY WHEATON.

IN tracing the principal outlines of his public character, his professional talents and attainments must necessarily occupy the most prominent place. To extraordinary nat ural endowments, Mr. Pinkney added deep and various knowledge in his profession. A long course of study and practice had familiarized his mind with the science of jurisprudence. His intellectual powers were most conspicuous in the investigations connected with that science. He had felt himself originally attracted to it by invincible inclination; it was his principal pursuit in life; and he never entirely lost sight of it in his occasional deviations into other pursuits and employments. The lures of political ambition and the blandishments of polished society, or perhaps a vague desire of universal accomplishment and general applause, might sometimes tempt him to stray, for a season, from the path which the original bent of his genius had assigned him. But he always returned with fresh ardour and new delight to his appropriate vocation. He was devoted to the law with a true enthusiasm; and his other studies and pursuits, so far as they had a serious ob

ject, were valued chiefly as they might minister to this idol of his affections.

It was in his profession that he found himself at home; in this consisted his pride and his pleasure; for, as he said, "the bar is not the place to acquire or preserve a false and fraudulent reputation for talents." And on that theatre he felt conscious of possessing those powers which would command success.

This entire devotion to his professional pursuits was continued with unremitting perseverance to the end of his career. If the celebrated Denys Talon could say of the still more celebrated D'Aguesseau, on hearing his first speech at the bar, "that he would willingly END as that young man COMMENCED," every youthful aspirant to forensic fame among us might wish to begin his professional exertions with the same love of labour, and the same ardent desire of distinction, which marked the efforts of William Pinkney throughout his life.

What might not be expected from professional emulation, directed by such an ardent spirit and such singleness of purpose, even if sustained by far inferior abilities! But no abilities, however splendid, can command success at the bar, without intense labour and persevering application. It was this which secured to Mr. Pinkney the most extensive and lucrative practice ever acquired by any American lawyer, and which raised him to such an enviable height of professional eminence. For many years he was the acknowledged leader of the bar in his native state; and, during the last ten years of his life, the principal period of his attendance in the supreme court of the nation, he enjoyed the reputation of having been rarely equalled, and perhaps never excelled, in the power of reasoning upon legal subjects. This was the faculty which most remarkably distinguished him. His mind was acute and subtile, and, at the same time, comprehensive in its grasp, rapid and clear in its conceptions, and singularly felicitous in the exposition of the truths it was employed in investigating.

Of the extent and solidity of his legal attainments it would be difficult to speak in adequate terms, without the appearance of exaggeration. He was profoundly versed in the

ancient learning of the common law; its technical peculiarities and feudal origin. Its subtile distinctions and artificial logic were familiar to his early studies, and enabled him to expound, with admirable force and perspicuity, the rules of real property. He was familiar with every branch of commercial law; and superadded, at a later period of his life, to his other legal attainments, an extensive acquaintance with the principles of international law, and the practice of the prize courts. In his legal studies he preferred the original text-writers and reporters, (è fontibus hauriri,) to all those abridgments, digests, and elementary treatises, which lend so many convenient helps and facilities to the modern lawyer, but which he considered as adapted to form sciolists, and to encourage indolence and superficial habits of investigation. His favourite law book was the Coke Littleton, which he had read many times. Its principal texts he had treasured up in his memory, and his arguments at the bar abounded with perpetual recurrences to the principles and analogies drawn from this rich mine of common law learning.

External Appearance of England.—A. H. EVERETT.

WHATEVER may be the extent of the distress in England, or the difficulty of finding any remedies for it, which shall be at once practicable and sufficient, it is certain that the symptoms of decline have not yet displayed themselves on the surface; and no country in Europe, at the present day, probably none that ever flourished at any preceding period of ancient or of modern times, ever exhibited so strongly the outward marks of general industry, wealth and prosperity. The misery that exists, whatever it may be, retires from public view; and the traveller sees no traces of it except in the beggars,—which are not more numerous than they are on the continent,-in the courts of justice, and in the newspapers. On the contrary, the impressions he receives from the objects that meet his view are almost uniformly agreeable. He is pleased with the great attention paid to his personal accommodation as a

traveller, with the excellent roads, and the conveniences of the public carriages and inns. The country every where exhibits the appearance of high cultivation, or else of wild and picturesque beauty; and even the unimproved lands are disposed with taste and skill, so as to embellish the landscape very highly, if they do not contribute, as they might, to the substantial comfort of the people. From every eminence extensive parks and grounds, spreading far and wide over hill and vale, interspersed with dark woods, and variegated with bright waters, unroll themselves before the eye, like enchanted gardens. And while the elegant constructions of the modern proprietors fill the mind with images of ease and luxury, the mouldering ruins that remain of former ages, of the castles and churches of their feudal ancestors, increase the interest of the picture by contrast, and associate with it poetical and affecting recollections of other times and manners. Every village seems to be the chosen residence of Industry, and her handmaids, Neatness and Comfort; and, in the various parts of the island, her operations present themselves under the most amusing and agreeable variety of forms. Sometimes her votaries are mounting to the skies in manufactories of innumerable stories in height, and sometimes diving in mines into the bowels of the earth, or dragging up drowned treasures from the bottom of the sea. At one time the ornamented grounds of a wealthy proprietor seem to realize the fabled Elysium; and again, as you pass in the evening through some village engaged in the iron manufacture, where a thousand forges are feeding at once their dark-red fires, and clouding the air with their volumes of smoke, you might think yourself, for a moment, a little too near some drearier residence.

The aspect of the cities is as various as that of the country. Oxford, in the silent, solemn grandeur of its numerous collegiate palaces, with their massy stone walls, and vast interior quadrangles, seems like the deserted capital of some departed race of giants. This is the splendid sepulchre, where Science, like the Roman Tarpeia, lies buried under the weight of gold that rewarded her ancient services, and where copious libations of the richest Port and Madeira are daily poured out to her memory.

At Liver