cations between man and man get trampled under foot in the "keen encounter of their wits." Moreover, the highest born amongst them has felt his dependence for success upon clients and their attorneys. The forced familiarities of the hustings fade away from a man's recollection like a drunken dream; but those of the bar are worked into his nature.

Mercantile men of the class which now and

then furnishes a statesman, seem to have little in their original calling which should prepare them to be either affable or otherwise.

Speaking of aptitudes for such services of a general nature as will frequently in the common course of things devolve a high civil authority upon military and naval officers, (the administration of colonial governments, for example,) it may be observed, that in affairs not falling altogether within the range of their knowledge and experience, the faults of the sailor will be faults of action and enterprise, the faults of

the soldier will be faults of timidity and evasion. If indeed their self-love and self-consequence be much concerned in the matter in hand, if they be irritated by opposition and disrespect, they will be brought more nearly to a common level. But this, I think, will happen less frequently to the sailor than the soldier; for though the former is more prone to peremptory and off-hand courses, the latter is more addicted to pomp and circumstance, carries his jealousy of what he considers his dignity into smaller matters, and finds more frequent occasion for quarrels. Upon the whole, I am of opinion that if the engineer and artillery corps, and also armies like those of India which are placed under peculiar circumstances, be excepted from the comparison, the navy is a more cultivating profession than the army, and produces minds of more general applicability to civil affairs. Let the training circumstances be considered. The soldier's activity is liable

to be sheathed in a long peace. The sailor when he has no other enemy, wages his war with the elements: there is no treaty of perpetual amity with them. The soldier lives under temptations to idleness or frivolous occupation; he has generally a variety and choice of companions amongst his brother officers, who like himself have but little to do; and he commonly finds himself in a situation to obtain easy and welcome access to other society, and especially to that of women. The sailor is

limited in his choice of associates: he tires of those he has, and is thrown upon his own resources and his books. The ordinary subjectmatter of his duties requires more care, skill, alacrity, and decisiveness, and offers more va riety of interest, than the subject-matter of a soldier's duties under the ordinary circumstances of soldiership. Further, he must walk the quarter-deck alone four hours by day and four by night at least (and more if the ship's

officers are upon two watches instead of three); and these will be hours of reflection in an open sea and fine weather, and under different circumstances they will be hours of observation and exigency. It is true that he also has his seasons of dissipation; but his duties in harbour are more serious than those of a soldier of parallel rank in garrison; and whilst he is most a man of pleasure, he is likewise to no inconsiderable extent a man of business: and some early day the wind changes, he is cast loose from his lighter social connections, one or two of them may be cherished in his fancy for a few days, but they cannot engross much of his life and understanding. In short, his profession combines more than any other, a life of solitude with a life of emergency; and in consequence more than any other unites thoughtfulness with efficiency.

Of the two men who have in our times evinced (so far as I can pretend to judge) the.

most powerful faculties of statesmanship, the one was a sailor, the other a soldier of the Indian army, — Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, and Major-General Sir Thomas Munro. Both were men who had passed a large portion of their lives in what may be called solitude and seclusion, because it was separation from persons of their own race or class. They rarely mixed with any persons but those over whom they exercised an absolute authority, and with whom they transacted business. They lived aloof from the excitements of society and of daily political contention, and from the provocations to petty ambition and vanity. They were eminently meditative statesmen. Whether their oratorical would have been equal to their other powers, they had no opportunity of showing; but if the opportunity had occurred, and if the wisdom which they possessed could have been cultivated in combination with other modes of life, and with the talents necessary