ture, for none of the grounds which are taken by the opponents of the Convention are such as the people of any state in the Union would either sustain or respect.

It is proper for us to add, that the power of the state is at present in the hands of the Whigs, which gives abundant scope for crimination and recrimination, as to the motives of reform by which the respective parties are actuated.

Virginia. The present Constitution of this state was adopted in the year 1830. There is a general disposition among the people to have it revised in Convention, but a serious difference of opinion has arisen in attempting to determine the basis of representation upon which the delegates to the Convention shall be chosen. Under the present Constitution slaves are represented as property, whereby the eastern portion of Virginia has a majority of delegates in the Legislature, and the substantial control of its policy. The people in this section of the state are unwilling to part with this advantage, for obvious reasons, and therefore insist, that the same basis of representation shall be adopted in the selection of delegates to the Convention. A bill was presented to the House of Delegates during the last winter, designed to ascertain whether the people wished a Convention, and containing this provision for the selection of delegates on the accustomed mixed basis of property and population, which the western Virginians of course resented, and tried to amend by confining the basis of representation to the white population.

The question at issue between the two parties is not new to the political history of the country; but the principle by which it is to be determined is exceedingly recondite, and the wisest statesmen might differ upon it. Its merits, however, cannot be understood without a fuller statement of the facts in which it is involved. It seems that the present House of Delegates consists of 134 members, elected from the four Grand Districts of the state. The Great Western Division of the state, embracing two of these districts, and including all the counties west of the Blue Ridge, elects 56 delegates, and the Great Eastern Division, including all

the counties, cities, towns and boroughs east of the Blue Ridge, elects 78 delegates.

In 1845, there were 183,436 free white titheables in the state, distributed as follows: in the Western Division, 93,791, in the Eastern Division, 89,645. Upon the principles of equality throughout the state, every 1368 of the titheables would be entitled to elect a delegate; consequently the Western division would be entitled to 69 delegates, and the Eastern to only 65, giving the former a majority of 4, to which they say they are fairly entitled by the theory of their government and their bill of rights. If, on the other hand, the selection be made on the basis adopted in the bill, the Western Division having 93,791 titheable, and being entitled to 56 delegates, would give 1674 titheables to each delegate, while the Eastern Division having 89,645 titheable, and being entitled to 78 delegates, would give but 1148 titheables to each delegate. Taking this sum of 1148 as the average constituency for each delegate, it would leave according to the present number of delegates, over 30,000 titheables unrepresented in the Convention, by which Western Virginia would chiefly suffer. escape from this inevitable minority, the Western Virginians ask a Convention to be chosen upon the basis of the free white population.

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On the other hand it is alleged, that the total population east of the mountains, negroes included, is 806,942west, 432,855, or about half. slaves in the east number 395,250, in the west but 53,737.

The

Again, the joint value of land and slaves in the east, is $229,000,000, in the west but 96,000,000.

Again, the total revenue taxes of the state, are $806,907, of which the east pays $426,493, and the west pays $182,412.

Again, the east pays into the treasury $1,15, for each white person, the west but 49 cents.

Each eastern delegate represents in value of lands and slaves, $2,945,000, each western but 1,718,000.

Again, the theory of slave representation is established by the Constitution of the United States, and is accepted by every southern state. By virtue of slave representation alone, Virginia

sends ten and a half members to Congress. The slave holding states send in the aggregate 21 representatives of slaves to Congress-being one third of all their representation, and without which the northern states would more than double them in Congress.

Again, not one of the original thirteen states has ever adopted the basis of representation insisted upon, of free white inhabitants.

Again, the east contains a colored population, including free negroes, of over 400,000, constituting a majority of 69,000 over the whites. While in the west, the whites are 7 to 1. The latter might, through ignorance or indifference, fail to provide adequate police regulations and securities for the safety of the east.

Under all these circumstances the eastern delegate maintained that the universal practice of slave holding states to avail themselves of the privilege of slave representation at Washington, constituted a justification; and the necessity of providing for the security of their constituents, made it their duty, to retain their control as long as possible over the legislative power of the state, and to resist any plan of representation in Convention by which property was not represented.

Such are some of the facts which are interwoven with this very embarrassing question of property representation in a slave holding community. There are other changes in the Constitution, which will doubtless be considered if a Convention should be called -among them, would be a reorganization of the judiciary, the abolition of the county courts, the election of ministerial officers by the people, and a

clearer definition of the right of suffrage, &c.; but all these are esteemed secondary to the all-absorbing question of representation. The minority of the committee who reported the substitute to the original bill, state that "the gross inequality of representation is the evil mainly complained of; all others are merely collateral and incidental; remove this, and all the rest as naturally fall into the channel of reformation, as the shadow follows the substance;" and they conclude "that the only proper and safe element out of which a Republican Government can be formed, and upon which it can rightfully be based, is the free white population of the community."

The points of difference between the two parties were discussed with masterly ability in the House of Delegates, and the question was finally brought to a vote on the 16th February last, and was disposed of on a motion for indefinite postponement by a vote of 63 to 53, the west preferring no Convention to one elected upon the mixed basis. The west will probably have to yield this point, for the present at least, unless the east should divide with itself upon some question of equal importance, with that which divides them now from the west, which is not likely. The two parties at present stand in a very awkward relation to each other, and we beg to assure them that they are their own worst enemies, in permitting such a state of feeling to continue.

We must avail ourselves of another opportunity to present a sketch of the history and prospects of the late Constitutional Reform movement in the State of New-York.

66

A POET should be the critic of Jeremy Taylor, for he was one himself, and hence needs a poetic mind for his interpreter and eulogist. Bald criticism becomes still more barren, (by contrast,) when exercised on the flowery genius of the prince of pulpit orators. Taylor thought in pictures, and his ideas were shadowed out in lovely images of beauty. His fancy colored his understanding, which rather painted elaborate metaphors, long drawn out," than analyzed the complexity of a problem, or conducted the discussion of a topic, by logical processes. The material world furnished his stock of similes. He drew on it for illustrations, rather than seek them in the workings of his own mind. His descriptions are almost palpable. They have an air of reality. His landscape is enveloped in a warm and glowing atmosphere; his light is "from heaven." His style is rich and luxuriant. He is all grace, beauty, melody. He does not appear so anxious to get at the result of an argument, to fix the certainty of a proposition, as to give the finest coloring to a received sentiment. He is more descriptive and less speculative. He reposes on the lap of beauty. He revels in her creations. The thirst of his soul was for the beautiful. This was with him almost synonymous with the good-"the first good and the first fair." Is it not so? Is not the highest truth the highest form of beauty! Our common idea of beauty is more sensual and tinged with earthliness. But the platonic and spiritual conception is nobler and

truer.

There was a period when the volames of Taylor lay comparatively neglected when the Blair taste was dominant. This sensible but cold critic does not even refer to Taylor in his lecture on pulpit eloquence. The present race of critics, unlike Blair, are for elevating Taylor as the very first of

orators. Of pulpit orators, he is, indeed, the Chrysostom; but Burke holds the first, the highest place of all orators. With the poet's imagination, he had also the logician's art, and the deep reflection of the philosopher. Burke had less multifarious acquisition, and his intellect worked all the better. Taylor had a vast quantity of useless learning, which had the ill effect of inducing a certain laxity of belief. I mean laxity in a good sense. He was too credulous. His faith, as well as his memory, was equally tenacious of all statements, whether well or illfounded. Bishop Heber notices this individual characteristic of Taylor in his life.

Undoubtedly, Taylor is a first rate genius of the descriptive kind. His strength lay in that; and his range, too, was universal. He painted every scene and every varying phase of any one. He is Claude, Rubens, Rembrandt and Raphael combined. He unites softness, richness, depth of shadow, and pure beauty.

Taylor has been called the "Shakspeare of Divinity"-a parallel that requires some limitation. If, by this, it be meant, that, compared with other preachers, he had a richer fancy, greater copiousness of poetic sentiment, and an unequalled profusion of beautiful metaphor, the praise is just; but if it be intended to express, that, like Shakspeare, he was gifted with an union of wonderful and various powers, almost superhuman, the criticism is extravagant, if not absurd. For, in his printed works, we can find not a gleam of wit or humor-scarcely any talent for portrait-painting no profound depth of reflection-no nice observation of real life. We say this with no intention of undervaluing Taylor; but only to show the folly of any close comparison between him and Shakspearer. We would rather say, Taylor was the