MR. EVERETT'S LETTER.

THE letter below is a reply of our minister to a memorial of more than nine hundred holders of American bonds.—ED.

Mr. Scholefield and Gentlemen-In compliance with the request contained in the memorial which you have now presented to me, I will avail myself of the first opportunity of transmitting it to the President of the United States. To avoid misconception it is proper that I should observe, that, inasmuch as the general government is not a party to the contracts of the separate States, the subject of the memorial does not fall directly within the President's province, and that I am myself acting unofficially in forwarding it to him. do it, however, with cheerfulness, out of respect to the members of this distinguished deputation. Nor am I less under the influence of the deepest sympathy with that numerous class whom you represent, who have suffered severely, some of them I fear ruinously, from the failure (temporary, I trust) of a portion of the American States to pay the interest of their public debt. These feelings, I am sure, will be shared by the Presi

modern Timotheus might do some good;| not in making "the great" forget that momentous meal (for that were an exploit beyond the power of the God of Melody himself,) but in producing an oblivion of dinner in the minds of those with whom at present it is only a pleasure of imagination, or at best, one of the pleasures of memory. The system in question is undoubtedly classical in one respect-namely, as a revival of the ancient fable of the apple of discord, as if we were not sufficiently disposed by nature to play our several parts in life in conflicting keys, without actual instruction to "set us by the ears.' Perhaps the music-I for-the-million-men flatter themselves that the way to put down party tunes is to strike up national concertos; but there cannot be a more grievous delusion, for as it has been truly said, that "the death of party is the birth of faction," so the attempt to get up a millionette will assuredly end in breeding a swarm of little vocal factions, the combi- dent. ned effect of whose several pulmonary ex-doctrine that a State, which has pledged its faith I concur with you in protesting against the ertions will be the production of such har- and resources, can release itself from the obligamony as was heard some thousand years tion, however burdensome, in any way but that ago in the first music-hall that was ever es- of honorable payment. Fatal delusions, in times tablished, and on the model of which Exeter of great distress, occasionally come over the Hall was undoubtedly instituted--to wit the minds of communities as well as individuals; celebrated Tower of Babel! Why, even in but I rejoice in the belief that the number is exthe political world have we not often seen ceedingly small of those who have, in any form, advanced the idea of what has been called "reparties of fifties, and even hundreds, dwinpudiation." I am convinced that those States, dle down to quartettes, trios, and sometimes which unhappily have failed to make provision even to duets and solos? There was the for the interest due on their bonds, have done so Darby-Dilly party, just numerous enough to under the heavy pressure of adverse circumfill a stage coach. Nay, we have seen two stances, and not with the purpose of giving a worthy senators separate themselves from legislative sanction to a doctrine so pernicious, unworthy, and immoral. the common herd of lawgivers, and form a party of a few days' duration, at the close for sympathy with their sufferings. There is, of which period the party broke up and split perhaps, no person, not himself directly a sufferinto fragments, each worthy senator becom-er, who has had so much reason as myself to feel ing a faction in himself, and screaming his political solo to his wondering constituents.

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.-There have lately been discovered near the town of Hyères, in the Var, the Excavations remains of an ancient Roman city. having been made to the extent of between 80 and 100 yards in a line from the sea-shore, there have been opened out a hypocaust of large dimensions, reservoirs, &c., and several walls faced with curious paintings, one of which is semi-circular. These paintings were at first very fresh, but faded on exposure to the light and air. They are composed of arabesques, figures of men and animals, flowers, and other ornaments, fantastically arranged, similar to the most beautiful of those found at Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pottery, vases, medals, coins, &c. have been dug up.-Athenæum.

The memorialists are pleased to give me credit

deeply all the evil effects-the sacrifice not merely of material prosperity, but what is of infinitely greater consequence, of public honor-resulting from this disastrous failure. The reproach which it has brought on the American name has been the only circumstance which has prevented a residence in the land of my fathers from being a source of unmingled satisfaction to me. You may well believe, therefore, that if any opinion of mine can have an influence (as you suppose) over any portion of my countrymen, favorable to the great end you have in view, it will be, on all proper occasions, as it has been, most emphatically expressed.

The position, gentlemen, of some at least of the indebted States is as singular as it is deplorable. They have involved themselves most unadvisably in engagements, which would be onerous to much larger and richer communities; and they yet possess, under an almost hopeless present embarrassment, the undoubted means of eventual recovery. I will take the State of Illinois for instance, and what I say of that State

of the world, in so short a period, such a transition has been made from a state of high prosperity to one of general distress, as in the United States within the last six years. And yet, gentlemen, the elasticity and power of recovery in the country are great beyond the conception of those who do not know it from personal observation. Even within this disastrous period, to which I have alluded, a private commercial debt to this country, estimated at twenty-five millions of pounds sterling, has been paid by the American merchants, with as little loss to the creditors as would attend the collection of an equal amount of domestic debt, in this or any other country.

will hold of others, making allowance for difference of local circumstances. The State of Illinois undertook a few years since the construction of a ship canal of about one hundred miles in length, to unite the waters of Lake Michigan with those of the Illinois river; and more recently projected and commenced the execution of thirteen hundred miles of railway. On these works she has borrowed and expended above twenty millions of pounds. The works are incomplete and unproductive. The population of the State is that of a second-sized English county, short of half a million. It is what in good times would be considered an eminently prosperous population; but I am inclined to think that if the English income tax of last year were, But I will not detain you, gentlemen, by enby the legislature of Illinois, laid on that State, larging on these topics. The subject, I need not more than half the population, possessing in the tell you, is one on which, in all respects, it is aggregate that proportion of the taxable prop- proper that I should speak with reserve. I think erty, would, in the present period of general dis- shall have done my duty, if I have convinced tress, fall below the point of exemption, and that you that I am keenly sensible of the sufferings of the other half a small number only would rise of your constituents, and truly solicitous for their much above that point. And yet the undevel- effectual relief; and that amidst all the unceroped resources of Illinois are almost boundless. tainties and delay, which may attend the meaThe State is larger than England and Wales. sures requisite for that purpose, I still feel confiBy the Mississippi it is connected with the Gulf dent that the time will come when every State of Mexico, by Lake Michigan with the St. Law- in the Union will fulfil its engagement. rence; and it has a most extensive internal navigation by means of several noble rivers. The climate of the State is mild; it contains, I suppose, as large a body of land, not merely cultivable, but highly fertile, as can be found lying together in the United States; it abounds in various kinds of mineral wealth; it is situated about in the centre of a horizontal field of bituminous coal, which Mr. Lyell pronounced the other day to be as large as Great Britain; and it is inhabited by an industrious, frugal, intelligent people, most rapidly increasing in numbers.-That such a people will for any length of time submit to lie under the reproach, and bear the loss incident to a total prostration of public credit, I can

never believe.

EDWARD EVERETT. 40 Grosvenor-place, March 31.

LAST OF THE BARONS.
From the Britannia.

The Last of the Barons. By the author of
"Rienzi." Three vols. Saunders and
Ottley.

"THE Last of the Barons" is that great earl-styled by Shakespeare the "mighty Warwick"-who set up and pulled down I say, gentlemen, the loss as well as the reproach, for wide-spread and severe as has been kings at his pleasure, and whose wonderful the suffering in this country, caused by the de- feats, varied fortune, and memorable death, fault of some of the States, our own losses, pub filling as they do some of the most striking lic and private, I believe to have been greater. pages of English history, are (among the The States themselves, as governments, have earliest of our recollections. Every one experienced the greatest embarrassments from will at once be reminded of those passages the sudden destruction of credit (extending alike to those States which have and those which have in Hume, which describe his magnificence not honorably and promptly met their obliga- and power, and of the closing sentence of tions); that credit on which alone, in some in- that paragraph which details his vast restances, they depended for the resources neces- sources, his retainers, his hospitality, and sary to complete and render productive their his courage: "He was the greatest, as well public works. The General Government of the as the last, of those mighty barons who forUnited States, after having paid off a public debt of more than two hundred millions of dollars, has merly overawed the Crown." This is the found itself unable to negotiate a trifling loan in motto of Sir E. Bulwer's book. this great metropolis of the financial world, whose superabundant capital, but for the default of some of the States, would have continued to be for those States themselves, and for individuals, a vast gold mine of unexhausted capacity. In addition to these public embarrassments, pri

vate fortunes almost without number have been destroyed, in the general wreck of which the failure of the States, as cause or effect, is one of the principal elements. I doubt if, in the history

It must be acknowledged that this time, at least, he has been fortunate in a subject which abounds in incidents and characters suitable to a splendid historical romance, and which yet has remained comparatively unhacknied. No period of English history is more crowded with events, exhibits more sudden and startling reverses of fortune, more dazzling successes and deeper wretch

edness, or is filled with more conspicuous | popular with the vulgar," caricatured Richactors standing apart from the rest of man-ard as hump-backed, when, in reality, the kind, by their native vigor of character, and only deformity of his person consisted in their supreme pre-eminence in whatever one shoulder being higher than the other. qualities they affected, than that which is Is it possible that Sir Edward really thinks occupied with the wars of the Roses. In that the world, since Shakspeare's death, that stormy time, the natural dispositions has been quite mistaken in its estimate of and passions of men had full scope for their his dramas, and that he at last is born to set exercise; the ordinary restraints even of it right? This offensive arrogance is conimperfectly civilized society were abandon- tinually repeated. He has picked up a few ed, and in the continual tumult of civil strife, phrases of the time, has got two or three the novelist, who delights most in the strange verses of an old ballad, and has dipped into and wild extremes of human life, in battles, Stow and Hall, and in the plenitude of his conspiracies, unnatural cruelty, and broken confidence imagines that he is entitled to faith, may find circumstances to fill his nar- express an authoritative opinion on all rative without the necessity of drawing on points that have perplexed previous writers his imagination. The history of that age and to rate the public soundly for their vulresembles one of those tapestried walls, gar prejudices and blind ignorance. He crowded with figures in every variety of ascertains that Richard was only nineteen action, where, without any intermediate di- when he is first introduced on the scene by vision, the peaceful chamber runs directly Shakspeare, and immediately conceives into a triumphal procession, and a solemn that he has convicted the poet of serious marriage or stately feast is succeeded by a error, and has made a discovery only second field of battle strewed with dying and dead. in magnitude to that of Newton, when he It is unfortunate that in his treatment of revealed the law of gravitation. We have the subject the author could not divest him- no pleasure in making these remarks; they self of those affected mannerisms which are forced from us by the author's absurd never occur but to excite disgust or con- pretensions to merit to which he has no tempt. We read the narratives of Scott claim, and to knowledge which is common with a feeling of their reality; if the por- to every ordinary reader of English history. traits and scenes are highly colored, they If he would be content with plainly issuing are never so exaggerated as to seem unnatu- his romances, as Scott did before him, withral, and the author himself is kept so entire out vaunting their value as historical comly in the background, that the mind is wholly positions, or pretending to dictate to the engaged with his creations. But Bulwer public the judgment they shall form, he perpetually disturbs the current of his story, would save himself much unnecessary pain. and thrusts himself before us by some antic Whatever may be his own opinion of his of composition. His capitals and small labors, he may rest assured that no person capitals, intended to give greater prominen- desiring accurate information on the events cy to stale or feeble sentiments, and his per- of the period, will ever think of searching petual jargon of the Ideal and the Actual, for it in "The Last of the Barons," or that have exactly the same effect upon the mind the little foot-notes ostentatiously appended as the clap-traps of a bad actor on the stage. to some of the pages, will give any other In each case the vanity of the individual de- impression than that the writer is not more stroys the illusion it should be his object to than superficially acquainted with his subcreate, and excites anger for his impertinent ject. intrusion, instead of admiration of his mountebank follies. This unfortunate habit has which they consider good, by voluntary subscription. CHINESE PUBLISHING.-The Chinese print books, so grown upon Sir Edward, that he cannot Some persons subscribe, and have a work cut in make the commonest and most obvious re- wood; a few copies are then printed, stating where flection, without a flourish that intimates he the books are deposited, and others are invited to has made a profound discovery. Thus he the public benefit. The invitation is frequently achave additional copies struck off, to be circulated for tells us that during the struggle between cepted. An individual who wishes for fifty or a the houses of York and Lancaster patriot- hundred copies, sends to the warehouse, the number ism was almost wholly unknown, and posi- desired is then printed off, and his name duly registered among the subscribers to the object.-Lit. Gaz. tively seems to suppose that such an idea never occurred to any individual before. superior to all that have hitherto been taken out. WOOD PAVING.-Another patent! and of course He takes on himself the task of lecturing Perring's patent wood paving affords a surface which us in history, and abuses Shakspeare with- presents a secure foothold for horses, may be laid out mercy for having "in his fiery tragedy, duced rate. down in the steepest streets in London, and at a releast worthy of the poet, and therefore mosted to us.-Ibid. At least so says the prospectus forward. VOL. II. No. I. 7

Fame smiles on Fury;-through each varied
creed

Priests herd with soldiers ever and anon!
Do tyrants topple, or do subjects bleed-
Are systems raised or systems trampled on?
Fame holds her lamp to Force-yea, Slaughter hath
the meed!

For war-the barbarous heritage,
The winter of the wide world's story,
The lava roaring through each Age,
Grave madmen recognize as glory!-

Hence, Wisdom, on thy pilgrimage!
Earth and her countless fools grow hoary.

Should this be so? Does man exist for this,
To reap the harvest of the life of man?
Being he has, and hopes hereafter bliss,

Yet reckless mars them both when "valiantly" he hundred thousand men were destroyed; besides five hun

Proving, with those, this holy maxim true

Perdition waits each cause imbrued in human gore

Yet war-the babarous heritage, The winter of the wide world's story, The lava roaring through each Age, Grave madmen recognize as glory!

Hence, Wisdom, on thy pilgrimage! Earth and her countless fools grow hoary.

ANSWER OF THE AMERICAN PRESS.

From the Foreign Quarterly Review.

1. The New York Morning Courier and Enquirer: The New York Herald: October to Febuary 1842-3.

ence is composed. You may tear to pieces and trample under foot a single number of the New York Herald,'or the 'New York Courier and Enquirer,' but at that very instant, there are tens of thousands reading that very number of either journal, and deriving from it all the satisfaction which large classes of men will never cease to take, in the gratification of their ignorance. or of their evil passions.

any

brothel, or any other scene of vice, with

'Does well-educated man in America read these papers with respect,' is the strange question of the Edinburgh Review. With respect! Why, what has res2. Les Américains en Europe, et les Europ-cated man enter a gambling house, or a pect to do with it? Does any well edu⚫éens aux Etats-Unis. (Americans in Europe, and Europeans in the United States, by PHILARETE CHASLES: Revue des Deux respect for the inmates he looks to find there? Far from it. It is more than probMondes, February, 1843.) Paris. 1843. able, if he has any feeling at all, that he 3. Les Etats-Unis: Souvenirs d'un Voya- hates himself for going; but he goes: and geur (The United States: Recollecthe oftener he goes, we will answer for it, tions of a Traveller.) Par M. ISIDORE the less he finds it necessary to trouble his LÖWENSTERN. Paris & Leipsic. 1842. 4. The North American Review for January, And this is what we charge upon the newshead with notions of 'respect' of any kind. 1843. Boston. U. S. papers, as not the least frightful mischief that is in them. They level, to an undistinguishable mass, the educated, the ignorant, and the base. They drive into one bad direction all the forces of society, which, if personal liberty is to be preserved, or the rights of individual thought and opinion respected, ought to be engaged in counteracting each other. Democracy is little understood, if this is supposed to be democracy! It is a state of equal and universal slavery: the tyranny to which all are subject, being that of a press the most infamous on earth.

We have reason to be satisfied with the effect of our article of last October, on the Newspapers of the United States. It has been, in the first place, understood by those whom it concerned, and complimented with that calm indifference and philosophic contempt, which were lavished by Sheridan's hero on the villanous, licentious, abominable, infernal Review, that had been written upon him. In other quarters, it has been met with guarded doubts, with well meant remonstrances with timid comparisons and questionings, and with agreement founded on honest examination of the facts and reasons that we offered. In all it has involved of necessity, more or less, a discussion of the nuisance it exposed.

This is the main advantage. And for this we return to a subject, only more important than hateful, since it forces us, whatever the tone we adopt, to admit at any rate the continued existence of a power, enormous in proportion to the absence of every quality which inspires respect. Power, founded on the junction of literary incompetency with moral indecency, and deriving its means of support from nothing save scandal, slander, wretched ribaldry, and ruffianly abuse, is the humiliating antagonist against which we enter the field. You cannot afford, with justice to all that is at stake, to despise such an antagonist; for you cannot treat with the same contempt the masses who listen to him, and of whose blind lusts and ignorance his influ

To pretend that such a condition of things must flow as a matter of course from the institutions of America, can blind only the most thoughtless. The Times' argues ably for all its opinions, but omits an important element in the consideration of this. The government and society of America cannot be assumed to have as yet taken permanent shape. On the great experiment which is going forward there-the right of any one broadly and finally to pronounce, is far from having yet begun. In the present stage of it, we must still maintain, the character of the people is more distinctly at stake than the character of the institutions. Nothing seems so dangerous as to palliate the social delinquencies of America on the ground of political experiment, unless it is the danger of making forms of government of any kind responsible for what lies in a direction too deep to be amenable to them. Government in that sense is much to be considered, but self