chiefly in the great masses-the agricultural and mechanical population.

This propensity to imitate foreign nations is absurd and injurious. It is absurd, for we have never yet drawn on our mental resources that we have not found them ample and of unsurpassed excellence; witness our constitutions of government, where we had no foreign ones to imitate. It is injurious, for never have we followed foreign examples in legislation; witness our laws, our charters of monopoly, that we did not inflict evil on ourselves, subverting common right, in violation of common sense and common justice. The halls of legislation and the courts of law in a Republic are necessarily the public schools of the adult population. If, in these institutions, foreign precedents are legislated, and foreign deci sions adjudged over again, is it to be wondered at that an imitative propensity predominates amongst professional and business men. Taught to look abroad for the highest standards of law, judicial wisdom, and literary excellence, the native sense is subjugated to a most obsequious idolatry of the tastes, sentiments, and prejudices of Europe. Hence our legislation, jurisprudence, literature, are more reflective of foreign aristocracy than of American democracy.

European governments have plunged themselves in debt, designating burthens on the people "national blessings." Our State Legislatures, humbly imitating their pernicious example, have pawned, bonded the property, labor, and credit of their constituents to the subjects of monarchy. It is by our own labor, and with our own materials, that our internal improvements are constructed, but our British-law-trained legislators have enacted that we shall be in debt for them, paying interest, but never to become owners. With various climates, soils, natural resources, and products, beyond any other country, and producing more real capital annually than any other sixteen millions of people on earth, we are, nevertheless, borrowers, paying tribute to the money powers of Europe.

Our business men have also conned the lesson of example, and devoted themselves body and mind to the promotion of foreign interests. If States can steep themselves in debt, with any propriety in times of peace, why may not merchants import merchandise on credit? If the one can bond the labor and property of generations yet unborn, why may not the other contract debts against the yearly crops and daily labor of their contemporary fellow citizens?

And our literature! - Oh, when will it breathe the spirit of our republican institutions? When will it be imbued with the God-like aspiration of intellectual freedom-the elevating principle of equality? When will it assert its national independence, and speak the soul-the heart of the American people? Why cannot our literati comprehend the matchless sublimity of our position amongst the nations of the world -our high destiny-and cease bending the knee to foreign idolatry, false tastes, false doctrines, false principles? When will they be inspired by the magnificent scenery of our own world, imbibe the fresh enthusiasm

of a new heaven and a new earth, and soar upon the expanded wings of truth and liberty? Is not nature as original-her truths as captivatingher aspectsas various, as lovely, as grand-her Promethean fire as glowing in this, our Western hemisphere, as in that of the East? And above all, is not our private life as morally beautiful and good-is not our public life as politically right, as indicative of the brightest prospects of humanity, and therefore as inspiring of the highest conceptions? Why, then, do our authors aim at no higher degree of merit, than a successful imitation of English writers of celebrity?

But with all the retrograde tendencies of our laws, our judicature, our colleges, our literature, still they are compelled to follow the mighty impulse of the age; they are carried onward by the increasing tide of progress; and though they cast many a longing look behind, they cannot stay the glorious movement of the masses, nor induce them to venerate the rubbish, the prejudices, the superstitions of other times and other lands, the theocracy of priests, the divine right of kings, the aristocracy of blood, the metaphysics of colleges, the irrational stuff of law libraries. Already the brightest hopes of philanthropy, the most enlarged speculations of true philosophy, are inspired by the indications perceptible amongst the mechanical and agricultural population. There, with predominating influence, beats the vigorous national heart of America, propelling the onward march of the multitude, propagating and extending, through the present and the future, the powerful purpose of soul, which, in the seventeenth century, sought a refuge among savages, and reared in the wilderness the sacred altars of intellectual freedom. This was the seed that produced individual equality, and political liberty, as its natural fruit; and this is our true nationality. American patriotism is not of soil; we are not aborigines, nor of ancestry, for we are of all nations; but it is essentially personal enfranchisement, for "where liberty dwells," said Franklin, the sage of the Revolution, "there is my country."

Such is our distinguishing characteristic, our popular instinct, and never yet has any public functionary stood forth for the rights of conscience against any, or all, sects desirous of predominating over such right, that he was not sustained by the people. And when a venerated patriot of the Revolution appealed to his fellow-citizens against the overshadowing power of a monarch institution, they came in their strength, and the moneyed despot was brought low. Corporate powers and privileges shrink to nothing when brought in conflict against the rights of individuals. Hence it is that our professional, literary, or commercial aristocracy, have no faith in the virtue, intelligence or capability of the people. The latter have never responded to their exotic sentiments, nor promoted their views of a strong government irresponsible to the popular majority, to the will of the masses.

Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfilment of our mission-to the entire development of the principle of our organization-freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man-the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?

WILLIAM LEGGETT.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
With echoes of a glorious name,
But he whose loss our tears deplore,
Has left behind him more than fame.

For when the death-frost came to lie
Upon that warm and mighty heart,
And quench that bold and friendly eye,
His spirit did not all depart.

The words of fire, that from his pen
Were flung upon the lucid page,
Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
Amid a cold and coward age.

His love of Truth, too warm, too strong,
For hope or fear to chain or chill,
His hate of tyranny and wrong,
Burn in the breasts he kindled still.

SKETCHES OVER THE SEA.

No. II.

THE GOTHA CANAL.

THE Wener is an inland sea, one hundred and twenty miles long and forty broad, two-thirds the size of Lake Ontario, and, after Ladoga and Onega, is the largest lake in Europe. Its shores are too low for beauty but its situation in the centre of the peninsula; its great extent, forming a line of coast of more than three hundred miles; the many streams running into it from far into the surrounding country, and its ready outlet to the sea, through the Trolhätta canal, and the river Gotha, give it great commercial importance, From Wenersborg, a mean little town of wooden houses, and four thousand inhabitants, scarcely rebuilt after the fire which not long before had laid it in ashes, we set off upon the lake, stretching across its southeastern quarter. The shore is so irregular, that, as we steered in nearly a straight line to the canal, which comes in on the eastern shore, we ran sometimes close under the points of long headlands, or clusters of islands sprinkled along the coast; and then again, far in the open lake, almost beyond sight of land. Early in the morning the water was smooth as the smallest lake; but the wind freshened as the sun went up, and before we had gone far we encountered a heavy, rolling sea. This began soon to produce a visible effect upon the ladies, which some of them frightened off by an expedient I never saw practised before-looking up into the sky, so as to see as little of the motions of the boat and waters as possible; an expedient which seemed to be quite successful. In the afternoon we left the lake, and entered the canal; and before dark stopped for the night near the little lake Wiken.

The Gotha Canal is a remarkable work, whether it be regarded in itself as an achievement of art, or in its results, as opening, by an artificial channel of sixty-two miles, navigation of three hundred and forty, forming a circumnavigation between the sea and the two great lakes, and through the heart of the kingdom. The canal around the falls of Trolhätta was first made, and called the Trolhätta canal. It was undertaken by a company of merchants in 1793, and finished in 1800, to serve as an outlet to the Wener, whose little towns it transformed virtually into seaports. Six hundred vessels navigate the lake, and the extent of its commerce may be estimated from the number of vessels, said to be five hundred a month, which pass through the locks at Trolhätta. The canal between the Wener and the Baltic was afterwards undertaken, to complete the navigable line from sea to sea; and the whole is now generally desig. nated as the Gotha canal or navigation. There are seventy-two locks VOL. VI. NO. ΧΧΙΙΙ.-1839.

Cc

and thirty-six bridges. Its elevation above the Baltic, at the summit level, is three hundred and eight feet.

None but masted vessels, such as can navigate the lakes, are to be seen upon it; and these are drawn chiefly by oxen. The bridges are, for the most part, of iron, not elevated much above the canal, but thrown straight across, from bank to bank, and instead, of being like ours, drawn up and pulled backwards, upon rollers, so as to permit vessels to pass. In the canal the rate of speed allowed to the steamers is four miles the hour; and our boat is steered with such precision, that it is made to shoot through the parted bridges, when there are not more than two feet to spare on each side, at nearly this rate of full speed. Two swivels swung on pivots at the bow railing, are used to give signal of our approach to the locks and bridges; and I have often watched with almost breathless anxiety our little steamer rushing towards these bridges, while they are yet opening, and then darting through them without even turning back her wheels.

Travelling in this way one loses some of the opportunities of observation which he might have upon the high road. But there are, on the other hand, some advantages to compensate him for the loss. He is travelling with a larger number of persons, principally natives of the country, whose characters, habits, and manners, he has the best opportunity of observing; whenever the boat is detained by the locks he can step ashore and walk into the neighbouring cottages or hamlets; while, so far as the aspect of the country is concerned, he can see quite as much, if not more, of it. But travellers are, in all circumstances, liable to great mistakes. A long and intimate acquaintance with a people can alone qualify us to pronounce a positive and unqualified judgment upon their social or political condition. There are, however, in all countries, some peculiarities which meet the stranger on his way, and fasten themselves upon his attention, however brief may be his sojourn in the land. And let him travel as he will, to remain a longer or shorter time, it is his best course, from the moment of his arrival, to mark the impressions as they arise, while they are yet vivid, and before custom has blunted the edge of his curiosity, leaving subsequent observations and other observers to correct his mistakes. There is no deception in such cases, if it be only understood that he professes to record no more than the impressions which the passing scenes, as he views them, make upon his mind, and the information that he receives from others; that the inferences which he draws may be just or not; and that the information given him may be wrong. Great allowance should always be made for him, for it is one of the most difficult operations of the understanding, to separate and assort the mass of impressions which must be rapidly cast upon it, and, in some measure, blended there; and he is obliged to draw his general conclusions from a number, too limited it may be, of single facts; and he must accept information from those who are as ignorant perhaps as himself. Travelling, more than any thing else, makes us charitable towards the mistakes of travellers.