lents equal to those of Cicero and Demosthenes; yet, as they do not labour so intensely on the study of their art, modern oratory cannot rival that of the elder time. It must be inferior in methodical composition, in the distribution of the subjects, in the style, elaborated to perfection by the combined efforts of study, taste, and genius; in the mode of delivery, refined by a long course of exact discipline; in the exquisite union of refinement with the most perfect air of simplicity, in the combination of art with nature. The proof of this may be found by comparing the deliberative orations of Demosthenes and Cicero with the parliamentary and congressional effusions of modern debaters. Yet, doubtless, the extemporaneous reasoning and declamation of modern times are better fitted for transacting the business of real life, than the more highly finished compositions of antiquity. Wherefore, as all life consists in action, it is perhaps wiser for public men, more particularly for lawyers and statesmen, whose whole business it is to be occupied in the transactions of real life, to accustom themselves to speaking extempore, which, although it can never render them such regular and finished orators as Greece and Rome exhibited in the best days of their high and palmy greatness, will yet better enable them to discharge, with credit to themselves and benefit to the community, those various important and difficult duties, which must ever devolve upon genius and wisdom, amidst the ceaseless activity of commercial enterprise, and the everlasting agitations of popular freedom.

It cannot be necessary to expatiate upon the benefit of an habitual study of the best recorded speeches, both ancient and modern, because they contain a vast fund of important moral, political, financial, commercial, and legal information, delivered by the ablest men of the most civilized countries in their most cultivated ages, as the last result of their happiest efforts, under the inspiration of excited genius, giving vent to its effusions, in "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." They furnish the best models of clear, profound, and compre hensive reasoning, illumined by all the brilliancy of elo-.

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quence. They afford the finest exercise to the analytical powers of the mind, while tracing the golden links of their argumentative chain; they enlarge the understanding, and elevate the imagination, by opening the richest treasures of lofty sentiment and extensive thought, glistening in all the splendour of appropriate and copious language.

The result as to the comparative merit of American and English public speaking may be given in a few words. In the United States there is less learning and → science among our clergy, less particular legal research among our lawyers, and less political information among our statesmen, than among the corresponding professions in Britain; yet, the eloquence of the American pulpit, bar, and senate, is more full of vigour and animation than that of the British church, forum, and parliament. In England, the college scholarships and fellowships, and various other munificent institutions, lend continual aid to the learning and science of her clergy; the liberal and protracted classical education, and the minute division of intellectual labour, giving to one man the single vocation of an attorney; to a second, that of solicitor; to a third, that of conveyancer; to a fourth, that of special pleader; to a fifth, that of proctor; to a sixth, that of a common lawyer; to a seventh, that of a civilian; to an eighth, that of a chancery lawyer, enable each lawyer to be more profoundly and extensively versed in the researches of his own particular department: and there being a separate class of men trained up exclusively to the pursuits of political life, who have, in fact, no other vocation than to acquire political and general information, and transact the public business, enable the British statesmen to become at once minutely and comprehensively informed of all that regards the policy of their country, both in its home government and its foreign relations.

But, in the United States, our clergy have moderate salaries; no public, and few private libraries; no fel lowships nor scholarships; no learned leisure, constant preaching, and perpetual parochial duty: our lawyers

combine in one and the same personage all the various vocations of an equity lawyer, a civilian, common lawyer, proctor, special pleader, conveyancer, solicitor, and attorney; and our politicians constitute no separate class, but are taken chiefly from our practising lawyers; whence these respective bodies have no opportunity of acquiring so much learning and science, whether professional or general, as those of Britain. Yet, being compelled to rely entirely on the resources of their own minds, in their various employments, and to place their ingenuity and vigour in a state of constant requisition, they acquire habits of greater intellectual promptness and energy than their British brethren who labour in similar callings, and, leaning systematically on their numerous artificial props of multifarious information and minute subdivision of employment, exhibit, indeed, more learning and knowledge on the subjects which they discuss, whether verbally or in writing; but, in general, display less acuteness, strength, animation, and resource of intellect than the Americans, who, having fewer crutches, are obliged to trust the more to their own legs; whence, in the United States, the individuals, and, in Britain, the aggregate nation is the most powerful. At least, this appears to be the fact to one who has had an opportunity of observing the people of both countries, by a residence of several years in each.

The common law reporters of the United States, and of the separate states of New-York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Virginia, are fully equal to those of England; and the New-York Chancery reports are far superior to any that Britain has ever produced. In a recent case, the two crown-lawyers of England sent to this city a joint and decided opinion on a very important question, involving an immense amount of property, and requiring for its solution an intimate acquaintance with the English common law, and with international law in all its branches, natural, conventional, and customary. This opinion was submitted to some of the leaders of our New-York bar, who, after due deliberation, gave an opinion directly contrary to

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that delivered by the attorney and solicitor general of England, and supported it by legal references and general reasoning. When it reached England, and met the eyes of the crown-lawyers, those gentlemen were induced to reconsider the subject, the result of which was, that they finally retracted their former opinion, and acceded to that of our New-York lawyers.

In fine, those who are acquainted with both countries cannot hesitate to declare, that, although in particular departments of legal inquiry the British lawyers may be more learned, more minutely and extensively read, yet, in the exhibition of prompt, various, and vigorous talent, the bars of New-York, Philadelphia, and Boston, surpass those of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.

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CHAPTER VI.

On the Literature of the United States.

THE writer of a pamphlet called "The United States and England, being a Reply to the Criticism on Inchiquin's Letters, contained in the Quarterly Review for January, 1814," traces with considerable acuteness and ingenuity the causes which have retarded the progress of literature, art, and science, in this country. But the whole performance is miserably disgraced by a rancour of personal hatred, and a venom of vulgar scurrility that ought never to be admitted into literary controversy; such weapons of warfare resembling rather the tomahawk of a savage than the sword of a gentleman.

Mr. Southey is selected as the victim of the writer's spleen, and loaded with every epithet of abuse that the language of vindictive vituperation can furnish. And England, together with her institutions, religious and political, moral and social, is assailed with all the bitterness of a foiled French jacobin. It was hoped that this essence sans-cullottism had long since descended from all decent society, both here and in Europe, to the dregs of the populace. Besides, Mr. Southey did not write the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, which is said to have been the production of Dr. Ireland's pen. Whoever wrote that article, ought to have known better than to indite such execrable trash against America; and it is difficult to determine whether ignorance or scurrility be its predominant characteristic.

In a recent publication, called "Letters from the South," the American champion has glanced again at the same subject; and, if possible, has plunged into a still lower abyss of personal rancour and scurrility,