reasoners-men who are not partisans or theory-mad. They ask, if the world shows writers of the learning of Gibbon, or the clearness and candor of Hume. Who, they ask, is willing, for the honor of literature or for his own fame, to devote so many years of quiet labor to the preparation of material and the formation of style, as these great masters of their art? Who thinks it worth the while to study classic models, in order to avoid errors which they must otherwise commit, and to imitate excellencies which all time has sanctioned with its heartiest commendation? And how much greater the difficulty when the writer is obliged, in addition to the adverse circumstances under which he labors in common with all others, to contend against the influence of surrounding institutions; against a hurrying and prevalent desire for immediate reward; against the madness of party; against an inbred and national aversion to protracted investigation; against the impulse to do the work of years in days. Surely foreign jealousy is not without the semblance of an excuse, in predicting no higher results from our attempts to write history, than party pamphlets or narrow chronicles.

Time must show whether we are capable of excelling in this noble and difficult department of composition. The materials for our history are unprecedented in variety and moral sublimity. On principles different from any before tried, we have constructed what has been often fruitlessly attempted. Our history is the record of a vast and memorable event, and it will require genius of no common order to write it in a manner worthy of its subject, and apart from its subject, deserving of a place among the annals of nations, whose destinies have been made immortal by the greatest authors. In this field of literature we are yet new and little tried; but from what we have done we may well afford to hold disparaging criticism in abeyance, and look forward hopefully.

It remains briefly to mention one part of our literature, which, in spite of its disputed tendencies, and the shade of discouragement thrown over it by modern codes, must always remain important and noticeable. I refer to the Drama.

A dozen years since, American dramatic literature had no existence. We had a stage, but the pieces on it were of foreign authorship. There was Shakspeare, whenever it was found he would "draw;" and there was Congreve, when an audience would tolerate him; and there were Goldsmith and Sheridan, when the hearers were fashionable and critical; and for constant use, and lengthy seasons, there was that miscellaneous gathering of fugitive, anonymous, and standard plays-the well known "London Stage." Almost our first attempts at playwriting, were those monstrous, but wonderfully popular representations of our city life, of whose influence we witnessed indications in the windows of every print shop, and in the hourly talk of the whole lower class of society. And so prevalent became the influence of these preparative, but demoralizing plays, that it began to be gravely thought abroad, that the mass of our population had no higher ambition than to sport the dress and language of a rough fireman, and practice the peculiar diversions of the stable and the race-course. Hard upon these, however, there have been plays of a different stamp produced by American writers, which from their own excellence, and the large share of favor with which they have been received, promise to be honorable and lasting additions to our literature. Without the aid of that illusion which always attends foreign productions, and unheralded by that

puffery for which, as a nation, we are but too famous, they have created continuous audiences in our great centres of dramatic taste, and received the silenter, but not less sincere, applause of our justest critics. As it is the peculiar charm of dramatic literature that it never grows old, and that its triumphs to-day are its triumphs to-morrow, those efforts which our enlightened judgment has approved, may, with entire confidence, be committed to the warm regards of a coming generation. And it will add much to the vigor and popularity of a drama, which we are just beginning to call our own, if we are careful to work into it those features of our every-day life which are now most striking, and will hereafter be most interesting; if we are satisfied with the simple and the true, and are content to deal sparingly with the classic and the ideal-remembering always that our audience is the people.

A single word, added to the subject rather than drawn from it, will end this brief paper. What our writers most need, next to that indispensable qualification, genius, is study-not so much of books as of their audience. In his solitude, the author is apt to make himself the object of his intellectual exertions-posturing himself in the attitude both of performer and audience. But in reality the author is nothing-and what he says is everything. In sympathizing with the honest vicar, we forget Goldsmith; in our compassion for Lear, we give not a thought to Shakspeare. Had these great authors continually thought, "How will this or that character show forth myself?" they would never have drawn pictures at once so popular and so true. Authors must study life, or they will only caricature their own ideals. We have life enough about us, rich in variety and matter for description: our fault lies in egotism and in imitation. We have too much pride to serve up human nature to the people; and our wish to be successful, without lowering the dignity of our conceptions, leads us to copy men whom all the world praises--overlooking the fact, that they are popular simply because they gathered their materials from familiar life, and lent their genius to adorn common things. Our authors can make their to-morrow fruitful if they will. Our successes to-day ought to teach us wherein lies the power to succeed.

BLOOMER-RIGIITS.

Whither have fled the gallant hearts
So famed in many an olden story,
Who felt that woman's smile imparts
The truest sense of earthly glory?
Alas! the men, degenerate cases,
With ladies now have changed their places,
And gentle dames once served so true,
By many courtly squires and knights,
Their own campaigning now must do
To win the cause of Bloomer-rights.

FARMING.*

During a recent debate in the French Chambers, M. Thiers remarked as follows:

"Two great nations are now entering on a manufacturing career, America and Russia; one has a democratic, and the other a despotic form of government. Both are making rapid strides. The Americans have good reasons for advocating the system of free trade. They have all they require for food and clothing. But if Washington were to return on earth, what advice would he give his fellow-countrymen? I am sure that he would advise them to remain agriculturists, as the surest means of liberty and of greatness."

This is the crude notion of one of that school of statesmen brought up in the corrupt atmosphere of "paternal governments," or monarchies, or oligarchies, who suppose that a nation may or ought to be moulded to some particular pursuit best adapted to the aggrandizement of the governing few, through the operation of restraining or guiding laws, and consequently that, by law, a nation may be made agricultural or manufacturing, or commercial, according to the whims of a few inflated representatives. It is true that the influence of a government may largely promote the activity of some particular trade, but it must be at the expense of others; and in such a case, the aggregate wealth of a nation which consists in its industrial productions, will be less than if no portion was restrained. Thus, during the wars of the first part of the present century, the large expenditure of the English government promoted the manufacture of munitions of war and the profession of arms. The principal occupation of a whole generation was arms and the manufacture of munitions of war, and that interest became so considerable as to make a return to peace difficult, and entailed immense distress upon the necessity of doing so; but no one will contend that all legitimate branches of industry were not injured, or that the marked decay which England now exhibits is not a legitimate consequence of the "protection," so to speak, then conferred on the war interests. The United States interests are naturally and essentially agricultural, as England is commercial and California mining. To advise the former "to remain agricultural," is to advise the African to remain black, or the Gaul to remain French. Seven-eighths of the inhabitants of the United States are cultivators of the soil, and the government possesses one thousand millions of acres of unoccupied land, of the best quality, and a rapidly increasing population annually spread upon it, free of cost, producing by the simple application of their labor a superabundant supply of natural wealth. This product is the means by which capital of all other descriptions is drawn from the old world. Yet, a statesman of France supposes that nothing but "advice" restrains these people from abandoning that soil, and

The Farmer's Guide to Scientific and Practical Agriculture, Detailing the Labors of the Farmer, in all their variety, and adapting them to the seasons of the year, as they successively occur. By Henry Stephens, F. R. S. E., author of the Book of the Farm," &c., &c., assisted by John P. Norton, M. A., Professor of Scientific Agriculture in Yale College. In two vols., with numerous Illustrations. Leonard Scott & Co., New-York.

becoming manufacturers with capital that they do not possess. But both M. Thiers and all others of the protectionist school, begin at the wrong end. Where there is a great and prosperous agricultural people, the demand for all manufactured articles increases not only numerically as the numbers of the consumers, but geometrically, or as the numbers multiplied by the growing individual wealth. Thus, if in a new state 1000 families require $20 of supplies each this year, the demand for goods is $20,000; in a few years more, 1500 families require $40 worth each, and there is a demand for $60,000 worth of goods. It is in this demand that the true encouragement to manufactures and commerce exists. Agriculture is the basis of the whole superstructure; the welfare of manufactures and commerce flows from its prosperity, which diminishes under the pressure of protective laws. Where there is a flourishing plough, the loom and the anvil, being moveable instruments, find their profit in supplying it; and that loom which is so situated as to require the least transportation of materials and fabric, is the "best protected," without any intermeddling of the law-makers. When that loom asks the government to compel the plough to pay it a premium on account of its proximity, all sense of justice is perverted, and all the disadvantages of distance are created. In England, where the agricultural is the aristocratic interest, the loom seeks to be relieved from the burden of supporting the plough; in the United States, the loom demands that the plough shall support it. In England, the plough demands that the loom shall pay high for bread; in the United States, the loom demands that the plough shall pay exorbitantly for goods. Common sense and the national interests in both countries demand that the plough in the one, and the loom in the other, shall be entirely unrestrained by legal enactments in their productive operations.

With the advancement of science and the development of inventive genius, the taste for both food and raiment has become more refined, and the wants of civilized people more diversified. It may be said, that the food of the bulk of the people in all countries remains now nearly what it ever has been; but the supply has become greater in proportion to the inhabitants of different countries, according to the fertility of the soil, the industry of the people, and in the improvements in the instruments of labor. Governments have, in modern times, attempted, by means of parchment laws, to extract from a barren soil, an unintelligent people, with rude and primitive instruments, food, on terms as advantageous as an industrious people, with the aid of eminent science, can extract from a fertile soil. Others have attempted to compel the possessors of a fertile and extensive soil to abandon agriculture, in order to rival the artificial productions of regions less naturally favored. Under pretence of effecting this object, they have compelled consumers to forego all the benefits of more favored regions which commerce would confer on them. The effect has been greatly to retard the progress of the people of all countries. In fact, it has been the avowed policy of many modern princes to preserve the statu quo, as that in which the people enjoy the greatest happiness. When we look upon the progress of the human race, from the rude ages to the present comparative high state of civilization, we become struck with the conceit that would presume to fix upon any stage of advancement, as that beyond which it is not desirable to go; and which would attempt to retard progress by restrictions upon individual business, and prohibitions upon intercourse, while new inventions in the sciences and the arts, have

conspired vastly to multiply the quantities of clothing which may be produced by a given amount of manual labor. The production of food has been comparatively unattended by such auxiliaries.

In the production of food, science has, by judiciously dividing labor, enabled the cultivator to extract a larger quantity from a given surface of land, but the increased outlay of labor and capital is so proportioned to the enhanced productions, that the cost of the crop is not diminished. Thus the product of wheat in England has risen from 24 bushels per acre in 1793, to 32 bushels in 1850, while the price remains the same. In the former year, cotton twist sold at 49 pence per pound, and in 1850 at 10 pence; that is to say, a bushel of wheat in 1793 was worth 12 pounds of yarn: it is now worth 48 pounds of yarn; its relative value to cotton yarn has increased 400 per ct. Iron has fallen from $85 to $30 per ton; that is to say, at the commencement of the present century, one ton of iron was worth 8 bushels of wheat: one ton of English bar iron is now worth only 2 bushels of wheat. Thus labor applied to agriculture will yield no more food now than at the close of the last century, but surplus food will obtain vastly larger quantities of all other productions. In this period of sixty years, the money value of those articles which the United States buys of foreign nations has been falling, while the value of those things which the United States sells, has remained nearly the same. Thus in the year 1790, the United States exported flour at $41 per barrel, and in 1850 at 51⁄2 per barrel, and the results are thus:

The flour exported in 1790 was worth 36,000 tons of iron at $100 per ton, the price of that year. The same quantity of flour in 1850 was worth 150,000 tons of British iron. Thus it is that the American farmer grows rich, not by the increased money price of his product, but by its stationary value, giving him four times the quantity of comforts and necessaries that he formerly enjoyed. The protective theory seeks to deprive him of this advantage, by compelling him through the operation of tariff laws to continue to pay old prices; or, in other words, to take a small quantity of other articles for his farm produce.

The process which has been gone through in the "textile fabrics”—that is, of producing larger quantities for less labor through the aid of science, has, in some degree, been experienced in agriculture, through the settlement of new lands, and the machinery of locomotion has reduced the market cost of most articles to some extent. The growth of manufacturing and commercial interests on the sea-board has conferred upon the Atlantic lands a "home market," which in some degree compensates by proximity of sale for the more prolific yield of distant states. The multiplication of rail-roads, however, by cheapening transportation, is overcoming this advantage, and is daily making more necessary a higher stand ard of cultivation in the older states; and although that minute finish which is found upon the best English farms, may not be attainable, and perhaps not desirable among us for the present, yet there is much to be learned from the experience of the English cultivators that is applicable to the wants of our own farmers; and the work quoted at the head of these remarks is of immense value, not only as a means of instruction to