the contact, if he choose to touch it, is, more likely to drag him down, down, to the place where it lies itself."

In these observations on some of the characteristics of Mr. Webster, we have not attempted a complete analysis of his mind, or followed him in any of those political and constitutional discussions in which it has been so ably exercised. We have rather taken a general view of his works, with reference to the large mental power and strong points of character they evince, and the elevated station they occupy as literary productions. We have claimed for them some of the highest honors of the intellect. We have considered them as being eminently American in their subjects and principles, and as constituting an important part of our national literature. But we well know how little justice can be done a great man, in thus taking, as it were, his nature to pieces, and examining each portion separately. In the case of an author like Mr. Webster, whose different powers interpenetrate each other, and produce by joint action a harmonious result, it requires a more potent alchemy than we have applied, thoroughly to resolve his different productions into the elements from whose combination they have sprung.

We have likewise run the risk of being charged with exaggeration, in our estimate of his capacity. The perfect clearness of his arrangement, and the straight-forward, thorough-going force of his mind, by which he simplifies subjects the most intricate to common understandings, and exhibits them in what Bacon calls "dry light," are not likely to be appreciated by those who judge obscurity to be a necessary ingredient of the profound. There appears nothing wonderful in the result, for it seems simple and easy of comprehension; but the wonder is in the process by which the result is obtained. Two or three judicious mysticisms, an arrangement half clear and half confused, a little mingling of assertion with deduction, a suppression of some facts, a lofty enunciation of a few abstract propositions, and a less comprehensive mode of argumentation, would give him, in the minds of many, a greater reputation as a deep reasoner, than he could obtain from his rigid severity of method, his penetrating sharpness of analysis, and his massive good sense. There is more likelihood, that such an author would be underrated, than that the triumphs of his understanding would elicit exaggerated panegyric.

In the United States, there is much-fanaticism in the opinions — we will not insult reason by calling them judgmentsexpressed of public men. There are two species of cant prevailing, the cant of absurd panegyric, and the cant of absurd invective; and it has become almost a custom for men indiscriminately to denounce certain statesmen, against whom they have no feeling of hatred, and indiscriminately to eulogize others, for whom they have no feeling of admiration. Praise and blame are thus made independent of the qualities which should call them forth. In the jargon of this political rhetoric, there is no sliding scale of morality or immorality, genius or stupidity; but the boundaries are fixed, with geometrical precision, at those points where one party comes, face to face, with another. On one side is knavery and folly, on the other side is honesty and wisdom. Of course, such a code of criticism admits of no minute distinctions or shades in the delineation of character. A few epithets, of the bitterest gall or the sweetest honey, suffice for the purpose.

We are not so simple as to believe, that this mode of deciding upon the character and ability of public men goes any deeper than words. It is merely a vice of the pen and the tongue, and has no foundation in the heart of the community. We have no apology, therefore, to make for reviewing the works of one who is connected with a great political party, and whose speeches, in some respects, are an exponent of its principles. As so many of our eminent men are engaged in public life, it would be folly in neutral literary journals to avoid noticing their productions, for fear of wounding the sensitiveness of one class, and disregarding the wishes of another. In respect to literature and intellectual power, there should be no partisan feeling. We have not considered Daniel Webster as a politician, but as an American. We do not possess great men in such abundance, as to be able to spare one from the list. It is clearly our pride and interest to indulge in an honest exultation at any signs of intellectual supremacy in one of our own countrymen. His talents and acquirements are so many arguments for republicanism. They are an answer to the libel, that, under our constitution, and in the midst of our society, large powers of mind and marked individuality of character cannot be developed and nourished. We have in Mr. Webster the example of a

man, whose youth saw the foundation of our government, and whose maturity has been spent in exercising some of its highest offices; who was born on our soil, educated amid our people, exposed to all the malign and beneficent influences of our society; and who has acquired high station by no sinuous path, by no sacrifice of manliness, principle, or individuality, but by a straight-forward force of character and vigor of intellect. A fame such as he has obtained is worthy of the noblest ambition; it reflects honor on the whole nation; it is stained by no meanness, or fear, or subserviency; it is the result of a long life of intellectual labor, employed in elucidating the spirit of our laws and government, in defending the principles of our institutions, in disseminating enlarged views of patriotism and duty, and in ennobling, by the most elevated sentiments of freedom and religion, the heroical events of our national history. And we feel assured, when the animosities of party have been stilled at the tomb, and the great men of this generation have passed from the present feverish sphere of excitement into the calm of history, that it will be with feelings of unalloyed pride and admiration, that the scholar, the lawyer, the statesman, the orator, the American, will ponder over the writings of Daniel Webster.

ART. III.The Life, Voyages, and Exploits of Admiral Sir Francis Drake, Knt., with numerous original Letters from him and the Lord High Admiral to the Queen and great Officers of State: compiled from MSS. in the State Paper Office, British Museum, and the Archives of Madrid, never before published. By JOHN BARROW, Esq. John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 1843. 8vo. pp. 428.

MR. BARROW has shown commendable diligence in the collection of his materials; but we cannot compliment him very highly on the skill with which he has employed them. There are few names more conspicuous than that of Drake in the naval annals of his country; yet, both in his high qualities and his infirmities, he was one of a very singular

class of men. The military and nautical adventurers of three centuries ago were in some respects not unlike the countries which they overran; combining the grace of civilization with portentous traits of barbarism; an odd union of Sir Philip Sidney and Captain Kidd; of knightly bearing with the rapacious qualities of the picaroon; of edifying devotion with a practical repeal of the decalogue. Some appear to think, that nothing more is needed, in order to vindicate them, than to show, that they acted in conformity with the spirit of their time; but the amount of this description of apology is, that others were as bad as they; and, even in far darker periods, the names of many may be found, who still shine gloriously among the lights of this world. No doubt, the influences of the age are to be considered, in forming a just estimate of their character; for that which is far from giving lustre may screen from condemnation; and there was something altogether peculiar in the prevailing sentiment of the age of which we speak. In eulogizing its distinguished men, we too often find ourselves compelled to adopt the qualified style of panegyric with which Baillie Jarvie defended his kinsman, the freebooter Rob Roy, against the taunts of his brethren of the city council: "I tauld them," said the conscientious magistrate, "that I would vindicate nae man's faults; but set apart what Rob had done again the law o' the country, and the misfortune o' some folk losing life by him, and he was an honester man than stude on ony o' their shanks."

At this period, the soundest heads were turned by the miraculous results of Spanish and Portuguese discovery. New worlds had just been brought to light, blazing with barbaric pearl and gold; surpassing, in affluence and resources, the wildest dreams of over-heated fancy; wrapped, by the glowing narratives of those who were the first to visit them, with an indefinite and mysterious beauty. Who can wonder, that the issue of an enterprise like that of Cortés, in which the matchless brilliancy of the prize, and the commanding qualities that won it, threw an unnatural glory over fraud and rapine, should have kindled a flame in daring hearts, compared with which the most consuming fever of modern speculation is cold and still? The proudest nobles forgot their pride of place, and rushed at once into commercial schemes, in which romantic bravery was to gild rapacity and

violence, and men were to be slaughtered like wild game, with the view of saving their souls. If it were too late for them to discover new worlds of their own, they were just in time to profit by the enterprise of others.

In England, where the fever raged as high as elsewhere, there were especial reasons which directed the attention of adventurers to the Spanish dominions in America. As the head of the only commanding Protestant power in Europe, Queen Elizabeth was the object of bitter aversion to the Catholic sovereigns, and, in particular, to Philip the Second, the most potent of them all. It was at her devoted head, that the bull, ordaining the excommunication and deposing of all heretic princes, was directed by Paul the Fourth, the same conscientious pontiff, at whose instigation the memorable interviews took place between Philip and Catherine de Medici, the queen dowager, most eminently worthy of the appellation which Gray destined for another, that of "shewolf of France." The Duke of Alva, a fit partaker of their conferences, implored them to extinguish heresy by a massacre of all the Protestants; but the shrewder sovereigns were apprehensive, that so summary a measure would be indiscreet, and resolved to confine their religious operations to the murder of the leaders, in such manner and at such times as they might respectively find most convenient. From this strange compact subsequently flowed the indescribable atrocities of Alva in the Low Countries, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris. Mean time, Elizabeth and her far-sighted counsellors were watching these bloody and portentous events with awe and fear; the fear which measures danger, not that which shrinks from facing it. Fear is everywhere the parent of cruelty; and it was this that led her into a course of policy sufficiently glorious in its results, according to the common estimate of glory, but low and tortuous, and blackened by evil deeds, which, however they may affect the reputation of the queen, were fatal to her fair fame as a woman. The might of England was not yet sufficiently commanding to enable her to meet her enemies in open war; but a ten years' war could not have kindled in the parties a feeling of more deadly hatred. In the eyes of the Spaniards, the English were the enemies of the faith, doomed to destruction by their holy oracles; while to the Englishman, the very name of Spaniard was an utter abomination.