went into heroics" again. Gentlemen met at the Board of Brokers, and grew financially furious on their wrongs. Persons, famous for making nice distinctions, expressed their incompetency to see the difference between the debts of the State of New York and the State of Illinois. Editors, both of tory and radical politics, were directed to be equally undiscriminating, and to scatter the whole wealth of their vocabulary of slander on America. The most atrocious misrepresentations, the hardiest falsehoods, the silliest libels, were affirmed with the utmost confidence, and believed with the utmost credulity. A crusade was threatened against our manners, our society, our institutions, our literature, and our people. Persons who were taxed to pay the debt of their own State, taxed to pay the debt of the general government, taxed to pay the debt of their own city, were to be outlawed as robbers and defaulters, because they were not taxed to pay the debts of other States, for whose obligations they were no more responsible than for those of the government of Great Britain.

The very holders of American stocks seemed to contribute their efforts to dishonor them. The bankers would not touch the United States six per cent. loan at par; and all means were tried to depress the securities of the solvent States. But, by and by, our rates of interest fell from six to five, to four and a half, to three and a half, per cent. Money was abundant in almost every portion of the Union. Stocks rose fifteen or twenty per cent. While curses against our insolvency were ringing on the London Exchange, while holders of State bonds were decrying their own property, many astute American brokers bought the worthless obligations at a large discount, and sold them to our own capitalists for permanent investment. Many

millions of the United States loan, which would not sell at par in London, were sold, some months after, to our own capitalists, at rates of premium steadily advancing from five to fifteen per cent. The stocks in London which " dragged" at eighty-seven, soon rose here to one hundred and four and one hundred and eight. And all this was owing to the fact, that in England it was very difficult to discriminate between States who paid the interest on their bonds, and States who paid it not; while, in this country, it was the simplest matter in the world, to any person of common understanding.

-

Now, our regret is, that a man like Sydney Smith should have chimed in with this popular clamor, and joined a set of persons whom he has all his life stigmatized as "Noodles." Old Mr. Weller's astonishment, when he heard that his acute son Samuel had been deceived by the weeping rogue in green, was not comparable to ours when we read the "Letters." From that production we should derive the idea, that all the rascality and folly of the world were included in the United States, that Mr. Perceval and Mr. Canning had never governed Great Britain, that Peter Plymley had written no letters, that there was no country called Ireland,—and that no English politicians had been in the habit of "touching the political Aceldama, and signing the devil's bond for cursing to-morrow what they have blest to-day." We are sorry, we repeat, that Sydney Smith's weakness should have led him to publish so rash a pamphlet; and, we are grieved, that, in a moment of petulance, he sold his bonds at a loss. A little patience, and he might have made, to say the least, a better bargain. The peculiar description of American debt which was held by him has risen much of late, and we trust

that it will soon be good for its nominal value. However, if he should chance to doubt his "Tunis three per cents," and desire to make a durable investment in securities of undoubted worth, and yet not wish to make another trial of Pennsylvania, we can conscientiously advise him to purchase, among other very valuable and unblemished American stocks, those which go under the name of Massachusetts Fives and New York Sixes.

DANIEL WEBSTER.*

THE verbal honors of literature in this country are lavished with a free hand. The mind of the nation is held responsible for all the mediocrity which rushes into print. Every thin poetaster, who wails or warbles in a sentimental magazine, is dignified with the title of an American author, and is duly paraded in biographical dictionaries and "specimens" of native poets. Literary reputations are manufactured for the smallest consideration, and in the easiest of all methods. A clique of sentimentalists, for example, find a young dyspeptic' poet, and think they see in his murmurings a mirror which reflects the "mysteries" of our nature. Two or three excitable patriots are in ecstasies at discovering a national writer, when they bring forward some scribbler who repeats the truisms of our politics, or echoes the slang of our elections. This nonsense, it must be admitted, is not peculiar to this country, but is now practised in most civilized communities. In England, a poem by Mr. Robert Montgomery passed through eleven editions, attaining a greater circulation in a year or two, than the writings of Wordsworth had obtained in twenty. The

*Speeches and Forensic Arguments. By Daniel Webster. Bos on: Tappan and Dennet, 1830-1843. 3 vols. July, 1844.

8vo. North American Review,

art of puffing—an art which has succeeded in consummating the divorce between words and ideas-is the method employed on both sides of the Atlantic for effecting this exaltation of mediocrity.

Now, we deny that the swarm of writers to whom we have adverted are to be considered as the representatives of the national mind, or that their productions are to be deemed a permanent part of our national literature. A great portion of the intellectual and moral energy of the nation is engaged in active life. Those who most clearly reflect the spirit of our institutions are those who are not writers by profession. If we were to make a list of American authors, a list which should comprehend only such as were animated by an Amèrican spirit, we should pass over the contributors to the magazines, and select men who lead representative assemblies, or contend for vast schemes of reform. We should attempt to find those who were engaged in some great practical work, who were applying large powers and attainments to the exigencies of the times, who were stirred by noble impulses, and were laboring to compass great ends. The thoughts and feelings, which spring warm from the hearts and minds of such men, in such positions, would be likely to possess a grandeur and elevation, before which the mere trifling of amateurs in letters would sink into ridiculous littleness.

Believing thus, that our national literature is to be found in the records of our greatest minds, and is not confined to the poems, novels and essays, which may be produced by Americans, we have been surprised that the name of Daniel Webster is not placed high among American authors. Men in every way inferior to him in mental power have obtained a wide reputation for writ