tences, and benevolent designs defeated for want of prudence or want of power; we should ever be cautious in estimating the characters of those who have taken a lead in public commotions. For at such times it often happens that the vilest of men are exalted, while good men are destroyed. FEMALE MEDIATORS. ANCIENT History informs us that in the days of Romulus a war occurred between the Romans and the Sabines ;-that during the war the Sabines by stratagem obtained possession of the Capitoline,-in consequence of which a general engagement ensued. This was renewed for several days with almost equal success. "The last engagement was fought in the valley between the Capitoline and Quirnal hills." After the battle had become general and the slaughter prodigious, the attention of the parties was attracted by a company of Sabine women who had been married to Romans. These females with their hair loose and their ornaments neglected, rushed in between the combatants, regardless of their own danger, and with loud outcries implored their husbands and their children to desist. Upon this the combatants, as if by mutual impulse, let fall their weapons," and ceased from the work of mutual destruction. A treaty of peace and union was soon formed; in which it was agreed "that Romulus and Tatius," a king of the Sabines," should reign jointly in Rome. with equal power and prerogative, and a hundred Sabines should be admitted into the Senate." Goldsmith's Roman History. In Robertson's History of Charles V. we have another pleasing account of the influence and agency of females, in putting an end to a bloody and destructive war between the Emperor Charles and his rival, Francis, the King of France. Two distinguished women, one from the family of Charles, the other from the family of Francis, entered into a correspondence and agreed to meet for the purpose of negotiating terms of peace. They accordingly met at a place appointed, and formed a treaty of peace which was accepted and ratified by the two monarchs. Such exertions on the part of females in time of war to put an end to the barbarous conflict, are truly amiable and praiseworthy. But pacific exertions in time of war are not all that belongs to the province of females. To put an end to war af ter it has long raged is indeed good; but to prevent the commencement of war is still better. This it is believed would be completely in the power of female's, were they but properly instructed and properly disposed. When a war is menaced between two powers they might have great influence in soothing the minds of the parties, and disposing them to forbear hostilities. But this is not all that is incumbent on them. As mothers and sisters they could instil the principles and the love of peace into their children and brothers, and thus lay a foundation for permanent and universal peace. Females who delight in war and are disposed to employ their influence to promote it, give ample evidence of a barbarous education, and they may justly be regarded as semi-savages. PROJECT OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 1 A WRITER in the Edinburgh Review has endeavoured to evince the impolicy of the Funding System, and to prove that it would be better. for nation at war to levy a tax every year equal to its expenditures, than to resort to the Funding System to obtain supplies. Whatever may be thought of his other arguments, the following remarks are unquestionably important: "But there are other considerations, and those too of perhaps still greater importance, which equally show the superior advantages of the plan for raising the supplies within the year. It would teach the government, as well as the people, to be more frugal and economical, and to conduct the public business on a less extravagant and prodigal scale. The facility with which money is raised by the funding system, has been one of the principal causes of those innumerable wars that have continued to desolate the world since the revival of arts and literature in Europe. It has tempted governments rashly to engage in the most ruinous enterprises; while, by deceiving the people with regard to their inevitable consequences, it has rendered them but too ready to second and applaud the ambitious projects of their rulers. The lottery of war is the most expensive and destructive of all lotteries. Its great prizes-its triumphs, and its conquests-however attractive and magnificent they may appear-are but a miserable compensation for the treasure and blood that must be spent in obtaining them." "There cannot, says M. Ricardo, be a greater security for the continuance of peace, than the imposing on ministers the ne cessity of applying to the people for taxes to support a war." No. 77--on the Funding System and British Finances. BRITISH REView of dr. wEBBER'S POEM ON WAR. A LATE Number of the Herald of Peace contains a Review of Dr. Webber's Poem entitled WAR. The review is introduced with the following friendly and respectful paragraphs. "We shall at all times hail, with peculiar pleasure, the literary exertions of our Trans-Atlantic brethren in the cause of Christian benevolence, and shall ever be ready to render their efforts effectual on this side of the water, by giving to them all the publicity which our pages are capable of affording. "America has long been an object of interesting contemplation. Its recent settlement--its growing importance-its rapid advances in all the useful arts of life-the prosperous state of its civil and religious institutions--and finally, the humane and truly Christian endeavours which are making in the United States to diffuse a love of peace and a hatred of war-all contribute to elevate both the country and the people in the estimation of the wise and good. "The little publication, to which we now direct the attention of our readers, is honourable to the talents as well as to the feelings of the Author, and we trust it will operate very powerfully to the extension and general adoption of the principles of peace. "It cannot have a better introduction to the attention of the public than its own preface." Then follows the whole of the Preface, which we shall here copy, as deserving the serious attention of Poets and Christians. "War has been for ages the theme of poets; they have delighted to expatiate on its dangers and its triumphs; they have celebrated the glory of victory, the toils and achievements of the conqueror, and have not suffered the valour and fortitude of the vanquished to pass unnoticed or unpraised. Amid its scenes they have found the materials of splendid description, and its vicissitudes have afforded them opportunities of displaying their powers of captivating the attention, of awakening the imagination, and rousing the passions. "But in the glow of fancy and the ardour of inspiration, poets seem in general to have forgotten that they were men, and in modern times, not only that they were men, but that they were Christians; that they bore the name of disciples of him, whose character was the very reverse of the character of those whom they celebrated as heroes, and for whose renown they lavishly exerted those powers which heaven assigned as a blessing, but which from their perversion have become a curse. "This censure may at first appear harsh, but will lose its severity if we consider for a moment how greatly man in every condition is influenced by the desire of praise. From the mon arch to the slave, all pursue renown in some way or other, and every pathway that leads to eminence is trodden by multitudes. However much we may exult in the praises of our cotemporaries, still there is something within us, that forbids the aspiring mind to be satisfied with a glory commensurate with our earthly existence; something that prompts us to obtain a reputation that will survive us; a wish that our names may be remembered with honour, when our bodies shall have mouldered into dust. Every effect must correspond to its cause, and as historians and Poets, the chief dispensers of earthly renown, chose in the earliest times to devote their choicest powers to the task of immortalizing the fame of the warrior, those who sought for glory sought to obtain it by military prowess. Their deeds and the example of preceding poets induced those that followed to a repetition of praise, and the stream of glory has rolled on for ages, an unbroken torrent of splendid atrocity. The golden waters of fame have flowed over the field of battle, dazzling the eye with the brightness of their surface, and hiding in their bosom the horrors and sufferings, at whose nakedness both nature and reason recoil. "That this should still be the case, notwithstanding the wide dissemination of that religion whose great doctrine is peace and good will on earth, is truly deplorable; and to those who know how early in life the mind receives a bias from education, it ought to be a subject of serious inquiry, why, while with our lips we profess ourselves followers of Christ, the actions, which we most love to celebrate and glory in performing, should be like those of the heathens, whose most powerful deities were but their own evil passions personified. "At this time great endeavours are making to awaken men to a sense of their error, to cause them to see how widely they are wandering from the path of duty, and to excite them to a cultivation of that peace, which their common origin and ultimate destination, in addition to the commands of religion, so powerfully recommend. Wishing to contribute his assistance, though feeble, to the promotion of so good a cause, the author has been induced to pursue a track but little trodden by poets, and has endeavoured in the following work to portray some of the domestic wretchedness, dreadful scenes and mental depravity, of which war is the cause. That this division is as good as any he might have chosen, he will not pretend to affirm; it was one that occurred to him, while thinking on the subject, as adapted to his purpose, and he has pursued it. How his labour will be viewed by the public is now to be determined; if favourably, his intentions will be answered and his hopes gratified; if not, he will at least have this consolation, that the attempt in which he failed was in itself worthy of praise." The British Reviewer proceeds and makes a selection of six passages from the Poem amounting to upwards of 230 lines. Each passage is preceded by remarks to show the object of the lines selected. The first passage is introduced with the following account of the work. "The work is divided into three parts, and the poet commences the first by describing a beautiful country village on a summer's morning, and with this attractive picture contrasts its deplorable condition and that of its inhabitants at sunset, after it had been plundered and burnt by the sudden irruption of an enemy. He then gives utterance to his feelings in the following address to the Deity: "Eternal God! to whom belongs above Stained with his fellow's blood before thee stand, Forbid the strife; let earth the mandate hear, The Review thus concludes: "We hope that this little work will be republished in Engand, and adorn the libraries of the friends of the gospel of peace, ranged by the side of the works of our own poets upon the same interesting and important subject." It may be hoped that such an account of the Poem from Great Britain, will induce American readers to examine it for themselves. REMARKABLE PRESENTATION OF A GRAND JURY. THE following American Document we have not yet seen in the Newspapers of Massachusetts. It has however been seen in London, and copied from the Morning Chronicle into the Herald of Peace for the first quarter of the present year, accompanied with judicious and encouraging remarks. "At a court of Sessions and Common Pleas, held at Georgetown, South Carolina, on the 3d of November, the following presentment was submitted to the Court by the Grand Jury:"We present, as a grievance of no ordinary character, that ef ficient measures have not been taken by the legislature of this |