but "little" higher than "the least erected spirit that fell from heaven," and their thoughts and their purposes cannot tend to the same end. There is no affinity between the intellectuality of the democratic principles of the one, and the sensuality of the pride of the other.

True to the general principle above stated, it is one of the crowning glories of literature, in all the various modifications to which genius has given it, that it has ever been the advocate of those broad principles of human liberty and of that independence of thought which have been the aim and object of the democratic movement in all ages of the world, and which, however minutely it may have been manifested, can still be traced in the history of every people working their destiny upward; disclosing and confirming the national character by infusing into it its own principles of justice, humanity, and independence. The political history of England, from the earliest hour it can be traced to the present time, is the record of a mean and selfish despotism warring from age to age against the best interests, and with the habits and genius of a noble people; and debasing, depressing, and corrupting them in the precise proportion that its malign influence was able to extend itself over the land. The literature of England, on the other hand, reflects the character of the people, and in its best portions is untainted by its monarchy. The personal habits, and the wants of needy and improvident professors, may, from time to time, have licked the footstool of power, and disgusted posterity by the servility of a dedication, a panegyric, or a birth-day or commemoration ode,-productions that adhere to the more enduring monuments of genius like the fungus to the oak, and which form but the dross, in which mind, not all untrammelled, paid the tribute of subsistence to circumstances and matter. But the sterling ore was coined into the lasting currency of fame, and in every department can be traced, in the loftiest advocacy of freedom, the soundest maxims of humanity, the most liberal and enlarged advocacy of equal justice and natural right. The grandest truths of political philosophy, which it has been at once the peculiar glory and the happy destiny of this country to reduce, for the first time, to national practice, will be found throughout, cheering the heart of the seeker in the magic of its immortal eloquence, and in the happiest inspiration of its heaven-drawn song. All poetry, indeed, is essentially democratic. Despite the canons of an envious criticism, which has mistaken the machinery for the product of the mechanism, we hesitate not to make the assertion that the truest inspiration of the muse has been drawn from that pure fount of universal philanthropy which invigorates with perpetual greenness the eternal principles of freedom. Poetry can never be made the instrument of oppression, and the poetry of England, in particular, has glori

ously contributed to swell the mighty current of democratic feeling which is now spreading over the world, and which promises results so vast for the future destiny of the human race. We speak of literature in its highest and most restricted sense. How very few of the million venal pens that have stocked the historical and political libraries of England, have contributed to the literature of that country, we need not now pause to enumerate. But we look forward with pleasure to the hope of going over this entire field in extenso with the readers of the Democratic Review. In fact, it is impossible for an elevated literature to exist without a corresponding extension of the cause of Democracy. Our principles strengthen in the light of knowledge, and are nourished and diffused as education developes the length and breadth and depth of the popular mind. Let other systems pervert the faculties of mind, and the facilities of knowledge, to mystify, and disguise with the logic of artful theories, principles at war with the interests of the mass; be it the glory of Democracy that it courts investigation, that it shuns this luxury of concealment; that the truths of religion, and the inquiries of philosophy, and the achievements of learning in every branch of knowledge and of art, constitute the best friends of its principles, and the most efficient allies of a cause, which is identical with the onward progress of humanity, till its utmost destiny of universal peace, happiness, prosperity, and civilization, shall have been effected upon earth.

We concede then, to our opponents, the claim, in the sense in which they make it, to all the wealth, but we interpose in behalf of the democracy, a proportionate claim to the learning, as well as to the genius of the country. What name is there, that conspicuously adorns American literature in all its departments, that cannot be found on the catalogue of the democracy, even on this, the day of its severest trial?

Mr. FORREST belongs to a profession which is always peculiarly classed among the literary. All will admit, that to be successful in that profession, as he has been, requires, in its own branch, the very highest order of intellect. He has proved to the world that he possessed this quality of mind, and his devotion to the principles of the democracy is but another illustration of vigorous mental discrimination, illustrating the tenor of our remarks. It is, indeed, in his case, the strongest proof of that intellectual energy, on which rests invincible moral courage. The allurements of wealth to which he was exposed by his professional and personal associations,the strong interest he had to propitiate the rich from whom alone he could expect substantial reward for professional labor,—and his knowledge of their hatred of democratic principles, and their ability, through a venal press and their social organization, to make that hatred felt, would have turned him, had he a mind of less strength and

integrity, from his attachment to the unostentatious simplicity of democracy, into the allurements of a more captivating sensuality of principles.

We are induced to notice, in a more particular manner, this oration of Mr. Forrest, because the time and circumstances of its delivery gave it at the time a peculiar prominence, as tending, more than any thing else, to show that, in the present envenomed crusade against all that Democracy holds dear, the popular heart is safe;-when the position that we occupy, and the progress that we make, can hardly be ascertained in the blinding dust and stunning clamor in which an unexampled developement of hostility to our principles, has enveloped us—the delivery of this address, by a man whose genius had made him the idol of the populace, in his own profession, rolled back the cloud for a moment, and developed the majestic strength of the popular cause in gigantic vastness and repose, and proved the unshaken sway of the cardinal principles of democracy over the minds and wills of which the simple exertion can place our cause in triumph. We find in it no unusual depth of thought or originality of mind. It has no splendid beauties of composition to charm the critic, or glow of eloquence to place the principles it teaches in a more captivating light that they have been told before; but it is worthy of note that the graces of an accomplished elocution, uttering in a nervous and manly style the sublime and simple truths of the creed of democracy, enchained a vast city in admiration, in their delivery, and drew shouts of responsive enthusiasm from the largest assembly that it ever saw. It is something memorable, too, that the art of the orator did not expire with the occasion that called it forth, but that his words, winged by the press, have been diffused in every corner of the land, proving the gratifying fact, that lovers and learners of the great truths he spoke were to be counted by the hundred thousand, and evidencing a strength and popularity in these principles, that form the most significant and cheering sign of their wide diffusion, and their correct appreciation by the public.

No one can read Mr. Forrest's excellent oration, without feeling and believing that he is an American, true to his national vocation, and who fully appreciates the peculiar mission of his country. He has drank deep of the pure and invigorating waters which flow from the fountain of American Democracy. The fervor of his language attests the strength of his patriotism-patriotism deeply imbued with the philanthropy which contemplates his country as designed, by her example, to shed the light of her moral truth, by gradual progression, into the remotest corners of the earth, for man's emancipation.

We select two paragraphs from the oration-not as the best parts of it, but as the most pertinent to the times. The following, we accept as a faithful interpretation of the duties of government.

"Not less auspicious would be the result, if adhering closely to the avowed purposes and duties of democratic government, we should preserve an equal distance between politics and trade, confining the one to the mere protection of men in the uninfringed enjoyment of their equal rights, and leaving the other to be regulated by enterprise and competition, according to those natural principles of economic wisdom which will be ever found more just and efficient than the imperfect and arbitrary restraints of legislation. But above all, let us be careful, by no political interference with the pursuits of industry and improvement, to violate that grand maxim of equality, on which, as on its corner stone, the fabric of democratic freedom rests. That we should frown indignantly on the first motion of an attempt to sunder one portion of the Union from the other, was the parting admonition of Washington; but with decper solicitude, and more sedulous and constant care, should we guard against a blow being aimed, no matter how light, or by what specious pretext defended, against that great elementary principle of liberty, which once shaken, the whole structure will topple to the ground. Beware, therefore, of connecting government, as a partner or co-operator, with the affairs of trade, lest its selfish and rapacious spirit should prove stronger than the spirit of liberty, and the peculiar advantage of the votaries of traffic should be regarded more than the general and equal good of the votaries of freedom."

A fearless and concientious adherence to the principles of American Republicanism, is all that we ask, all that we could desire, in carrying out our scheme of social polity. The following sentence has an individual bearing on every citizen, and, in the proper answer to its interrogatories, all will admit the security of our institutions to be deeply interested, and the greater question of their whole objects and usefulness to be vitally involved.

"If, in any respect, the great experiment which America has been trying before the world has failed to accomplish the true end of government-'the greatest good of the greatest number'-it is only where she herself has proved recreant to the fundamental article of her creed. If we have not prospered to the greatest possible extent compatible with the condition of humanity, it is because we have sometimes deviated, in practice, from the sublime maxim, 'that all men are created free and equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' If in no instance we have transgressed this axiom of democratic liberty, how is it that one man may freely perform what it is a crime for another to attempt? By what principle, accordant with equal rights, are the penal interdictions of the law thrown across my path, to shut me from a direction, which another may pursue without fear or hindrance? Why are a few decorated with the insignia of chartered privileges, and armed in artificial intangibility, while the many stand undistinguished in the plain exterior of the natural man, with no forged contrivance of the law to shield them from the 'shocks that flesh is heir to? Are these things consistent with the doctrine which teaches that equal protection is the sole true end of government? that its restraints should hold all with equal obligation? that its blessings, like the 'gentle dews of heaven,' should fall equally on the heads of all?"

POLITICAL TOLERANCE.

THE infinite variety of nature furnishes an unfailing source of admiration to all who contemplate her works. The boundless affluence of creative wisdom, is signally and beautifully illustrated in this interminable diversity. From the tiniest forms of being, which people in myriads every speck of matter visible to the naked eye, to those huge monsters which shake the sounding desert with their tread; from the blade of grass which we crush beneath our feet, to the towering forests which spread continuous shade over half a continent; from the smallest grain of sand which sparkles on the sea-shore, to those magnificent worlds which lie sprinkled through the fields of space, at so immense a distance, that they seem themselves as small; the character which nature stamps on her productions, through all these vast gradations, is that of ceaseless, universal variety. Her excelling hand fashions no two objects alike. Not only does kind differ from kind, and species from species, but one individual differs from another. The flowers which bloom on the same stem; the leaves which rustle on the same bough; the beasts which herd together from the impulse of congenial sympathy; birds warmed into life in the same nest; and men, twin offsprings of the same womb, all bear distinctive marks of nature's inexhaustible fertility of design. From the lowest to the highest link in her stupenduous chain, as far as human ken can reach, this endless difference is seen. Each mote that dances in the sunbeams has its own peculiar shape and substance, and "one star differeth from another star in glory."

But the infinite resources of nature are not alone displayed in diversifying the forms and qualities of matter in the physical creation. Not less wonderful is the variety which the immaterial world presents. The subtle principle of life is as diverse and manifold in its operations, as the innumerable forms of being on which it acts; and in man, the glorious attribute which distinguishes him from all other organized existences, is modified by perpetual variations in every individual of his race. Mind differs from mind, not less than feature from feature. In tastes, habits, modes of thinking, and degrees of intelligence; in memory, imagination, and the power of comparison and inference; and in every separate faculty of intellect, each human being is marked by qualities exclusively his own. Boundless as is the field of knowledge and speculation, there is perhaps scarcely a subject that employs the thoughts of men, on which the opinions of any two wholly coincide. They worship at the