the allurements of gain and the shifting colors of fashion, their sound is hushed, their life extinct, and they are shown as ashes saved in ancient urns, as grim atomies or forbidding reliques. But among the mountains, where events are rare, and the purposes of life few and unperplexed, where the foot-wheel's drowsy hum still lingers, still lingers the traditionary crone of these old verses-the humblest expression of melody-the literature of the unlearned. And some there are, who, not without power to appreciate more cultivated entertainments, would fain forego them, but once to refresh the fountains of the childish tears, which flowed of old at the screaming recitatives of Lady Margaret or Barbara Allen.

With respect to the Norman or romantic school, the Saxon may be termed the primitive rock of English literature-for a while submerged, but eventually upheaving its deep and strong foundations through the new and fossiled strata, mingling its fragments with theirs, and gradually forming a peculiar soil, where the golden harvest waves, and woods and waters fill up the gay landscape.

Our novel is derived from the old romance of chivalry. But curtailed of its absurd extravagance, tempered by the common sense, and informed with the sincere pathos of the Saxon school, it resembles its original as do the scenes of wild enchantment the intelligible comforts of the fireside. The old romance, as we have seen, was a tale of strange adventure and impossible achievements. The novel, on the contrary, bounds its action by the compass of ordinary prowess, and relates to real life. However those reckless and unchaste sallies of fancy might have suited the garish modes and gratified the prurient tastes of the Norman court and feudal castle, to us they bear no comparison with the correct and peculiar graces of the novel. To what, indeed, shall we compare this charming solace of our weary and desponding hours? The magnitude of its action, and the pomp of its progress, seem often to claim for it affinity with the epic; its light and blithesome passages remind us of the graces of the comic muse; the keen search with which it penetrates the heart, and reflects the image of our inmost. thoughts, and delineates the operation of profound passion, revives in us the impression of pure tragedy; while history, pleased with recognising her own traits and motions in this new accession to the sisterhood of the muses, exultingly embraces her as her own offspring, and bids her chronicle

the less solemn transactions of the time, and perpetuate with her true and ready pencil, those delicate and transient hues which pass over the surface of society, like those which linger in the evening sky.

We have not placed Dr. Percy's Reliques at the head of this article with a view to criticism; its reputation has been too long established to need commendation or fear censure; but as the subject we have been considering was suggested to us by the appearance of a new and beautiful edition of this delightful book, it seemed to us a fair occasion for presenting it to the attention of our readers. The work that follows it is one of the most recent productions of the German press. Its author, who publishes under the pseudonyme of Talvj, is Mrs. Professor Robinson, a lady of superior talents and learning, personally known in many of our literary circles; and if her American is not equal to her European fame, it is because she has not employed the language of her adopted country in extending it. Popular poetry has for years been one of her favorite studies; in 1826 she published two octavo volumes of poetical translations from the Servian, remarkable both for beauty of versification, and for the learning displayed in the historical introductions prefixed to them. The present work, we think, will more than sustain, in each respect, the high reputation she then acquired. A few of its chapters are devoted to a general survey of the songs of the rude nations of both continents, but its main object is to exhibit the distinctive characteristics of the popular poetry of the Germanic nations of Europe. In doing this, Mrs. Robinson has discovered great familiarity with the subject of which she treats, as well as a due understanding of its importance in a historical point of view, which will justly entitle the work to a high rank in this department of literature. For the history of the early English and Scottish poetry, she has collected the most important facts from the dissertations of Percy, Ellis, Ritson, Campbell, Jamieson, and Scott, besides much that is curious and interesting from other sources. The affinities between the Scandinavian and AngloSaxon saga and songs both in form and spirit, and hence the existence of some germs of poetry among the Saxons, prior even to their establishment in England, are considered by Mrs. Robinson as incontrovertible facts, and form the ground work of her views of the after literary cultivation of these people.

ART. V.-" The Infancy of the Union." A Discourse, delivered before the New York Historical Society, Thursday, December 19, 1839. By WILLIAM B. REED. Published at the request of the Society. Philadelphia: 1840.

IN American politics, the subject which especially calls for studious examination, is the relation subsisting between the general and state governments, or what is usually denominated the Union. Eminently it requires both historical research and the light of political philosophy. A knowledge of the true nature of this relation, is essential to an acquaintance with the constitutional law of the land. It is essential, too, to every man, who would bring his understanding to know the source of the thousand social as well as political blessings which are daily and hourly felt-blessings familiar as the air which sustains our life, or the water which flows to minister to the first cravings of thirst-familiar, and therefore enjoyed heedlessly, thoughtlessly.

A paramount lesson in American statesmanship, is that which gives a knowledge of the Union-not of the federal government on the one hand, nor of the state governments on the other, but of both in their combination. The idea of the Union is not mere unity, but of unity as it is made up of its political constituents, the sovereignties of the states. When men talk of state rights or of federal rights, setting them in opposition, they talk of half truths. It is illogical to contrast the Union with the States. It is a sophism, fraught, as theoretical error often is, with dangerous practical consequences. There is scarcely a mistaken constitutional opinion, which may not be traced to a false notion of this fundamental principle of our political system. If the powers of the state governments are unduly exaggerated, it is an injury to the Union; if the powers of the general government are unduly exaggerated, that also is an injury to the Union. There are powers and rights of the one, and there are powers and rights of the other; and the Union is the harmonious existence of both. The Union is not the federal government. To strengthen the central system at the expense of the state governments is as incompatible with the Union, properly understood, and as injurious to it, as if, on the other hand, the qualified sovereignty of the states should encroach upon the former.

We have remarked that the Union is not identical with the federal government. It is worthy of notice, that the terms are often employed synonymously, or rather, to state it more precisely, the former is used as if it signified the latter, and nothing more. Now no one who has reflected upon the influence of words upon thoughts, will venture to say that this is mere matter of accommodation to colloquial convenience. A looseness in the current usage of terms, is a source of error, proclaimed in that philosophy whose comprehensive purpose was the purgation of the human intellect, and Lord Bacon's aphorism cannot be too often quoted, that "men imagine that their minds have the command of language; but it often happens, that language bears rule over their minds." Let us look at this influence in the one case now before us. The Union, that is, the combined and harmonious existence of the state governments and the general government, is the system which time has endeared to the people as the means by which are secured national honor, safety and welfare, and civic freedom with all its blessings. But the flexibility of language in its ordinary uses allows the term to be applied when the federal government alone is intended. Then comes the almost inevitable confusion of thought, by which opinions and feelings appropriate to the Union-that which is in truth the Union-are narrowed in their application to what is after all but a part of the system. The next step of error, for error is progressive or peripatetic, is to disparage the other part of the system, and thus to depreciate the true proportionate value of the states.

We cannot dismiss this subject of the influence of language upon thought, without adverting to another political instance, in which the principle appears to us to have an important bearing. We allude to the very familiar and free, we may say flippant use, of the term employed to designate a function of the executive department of government-the word "veto." Is it known to men on whose tongues it trips so fluently, that there is no such word in the constitution. of the United States? It is an expression, the existence of which seems scarcely to have been recognised by the framers of the federal government, as will be found by examination of the record of their proceedings. Do men reflect that the word, considered either historically or philologically, is as inappropriate as possible, to express the very qualified participation which it was contemplated the executive should

have in legislative acts? What word could have been selected, in the whole range of the vocabularies of the living or the dead, more absolute, more arbitrary, than the monarchal, the more than monarchal, the autocratic I FORBID? A perfectly sound state of public opinion and feeling, we apprehend, does not exist in regard to this particular constitutional function, and to that unsoundness, we do not doubt, not a little has been contributed by an abuse of language.

But to return to our subject. We have a complex citizenship. Each man is a citizen of New York, or of Pennsylvania, or of Virginia, or whatever the case may be, and he is a citizen of the United States. He has duties to each, neither, paramount to the other. There is no conflict of responsibility; allegiance to one can never be disloyalty or treason to the other. Beside the definite constitutional and legal obligations which rest on every one, there is a duty of sentiment, which calls for conscientious cultivation. Too often the civic feeling is a mere impulse, the force of which, dependant on chance and circumstance, will fluctuate and waver with them. In one man's mind, attachment to his State may predominate, while in his neighbor's, it will be subordinate to the national feeling. In different sections of the United States, the state spirit and the federal spirit may be observed to prevail in very various proportions; the political sentiments, in this respect, stand greatly in need of a regulating and controlling principle. We repeat, that there is nothing antagonistic in them; on the contrary, their nature is harmony, the due cultivation of one strengthening, indeed, the other. There is no more opposition between them than between a man's love to his wife and to his child, or, to take a case of more analogous parity, between the filial piety to a father and to a mother. There is a state patriotism and a national patriotism-two springs flowing in one channel, and fertilizing the same banks. When one of these sentiments absorbs and exhausts the nourishment and strength of the other, there is disease, and if protracted and inveterate, it is disease leading unto death.

Irregular action of our political system tends inevitably to one or other of two evils-consolidation or disunion. A deviation must be in one of these directions, and which is the more to be deprecated, it is hard to say. But this is clear, that it is proof of a contracted habit of political thought-a narrowness of vision-to regard either of them, it matters