their own. This has been done, because it has been found very necessary to have some proof that men have foresight and self-denial before they should be encouraged to associate. Working-men in general are not fit for association. They come into it with an idea that it is to fill their pockets and lighten their work at once, and that every man in an association is to be his own master. They find their mistake in the first month or two, and then set to quarrelling with everybody connected with the association, but more especially with their manager; and, after much bad blood has been roused, the association breaks up insolvent, or has to be re-formed under very stringent rules, and after the expulsion of the refractory members." pp. 113, 114.

The crying evil, as it appears to us, of the present system of unrestricted competition, is not so much the distress of the workmen as the extreme slovenliness and badness of their work. The joy and satisfaction of making really good things is destroyed by the criminal eagerness to make them to suit the market. The love of art, which, quite as much as virtue, is its own reward, used in the old times to penetrate down as far as to the meanest manufacture of kettles, for example, and pots. With us, on the contrary, the miserable truckling to the bad taste of the multitude has gradually stolen up into the very regions of the highest art—into architecture, sculpture, painting, music, literature. Nay, has it not infected even morality and religion? And do we never hear spiritual advice, which in fact bids us do as little good, and get as much applause for it, as we can;- and above all things, know the state of the market?

So far as coöperative societies or guilds would remove this evil, they would be of great use. But let it not be forgotten that the object of human society is not the mere "culinary" one of securing equal apportionments of meat and drink to all its members. Men combine for some higher object; and to that higher object it is, in their social capacity, the privilege and real happiness of individuals to sacrifice themselves. The highest political watchword is not Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, nor yet Solidarity, but Service.

The true comfort to the soldiers, serving in the great industrial army of arts, commerce, and manufactures, is neither to tell them, with the Utopians, that a good time is coming, when

they will have plenty of victuals and not so much to do; nor yet with the Economists, to hold out to them the prospect of making their fortune;—but to show them that what they are now doing is good and useful service to the community; to call upon them to do it well and thoroughly; and to teach them how they may;— and all this quite irrespectively of any prospects, either of making a fortune or living on into a good time.

We are not sure that our author would quite coincide with us in a comparative disregard of physical discomfort, privation, and suffering. Yet we think he would join us in the belief that the real want of the present time is, above all things, the distinct recognition and steady observance of a few plain, and not wholly modern, rules of morality.

It is very fine, perhaps not very difficult, to do every now and then some noble or generous act. But what is wanted of us is to do no wrong ones. It may be, for instance, in many eyes, a laudable thing to amass a colossal fortune by acts not in all cases of quite unimpeachable integrity, and then to expend it in magnificent benevolence. But the really good thing was not to make the fortune. Thorough honesty, and plain undeviating integrity - these are our real needs; -on these substructions only can the fabric of individual or national well-being safely be reared. "Other foundation can no man lay." Common men, who, in their petty daily acts, maintain these ordinary unostentatious truths, are the real benefactors of mankind, the real pillars of the state, are the apostles and champions of something not to be named within a few pages of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, the Solidarity of the Peoples, and the Universal Republic.

We will take leave of our author by a quotation from his last chapter, called "the Future." It follows after some considerations on the prospects of the various nations of Europe.

"The prospect before our own country, bright as it is on many sides, opening before the view the noblest field of progress, is yet darkened by some threatening clouds. The prosperity that we have enjoyed may continue, and may extend with every year. But the rapid gains in material wealth which have been made during late years; the new

fields of adventure, enterprise, and speculation, which have been opened, have given to the period a character of haste and excitement which leads to inconsiderateness and irreflection. It is time to pause, to draw breath at least, and look around to see whither we are hurrying. It is for us to remember that national prosperity depends on national character, and that long-continued prosperity may have the effect of weakening and of finally depraving that character. The popular declamation of the present day- the talk about 'manifest destiny,' 'natural boundaries,' 'geographical extension,' and such other topics — is one sign that this effect has already been in part produced. There is no such thing as destiny in the affairs of a nation. The fate of every nation depends, under God, upon its own acts; and if its acts partake of that wild, reckless, and unprincipled spirit which such language indicates, its fate is no longer uncertain. Strength may be diminished, and prosperity decreased, by unwieldy stretch of territory. The natural boundaries of a country are those, wider or narrower, within which the people may be best governed; and if to increase in territorial size is to diminish the chance of good government, then that nation is suicidal which chooses to add land to land, and state to state. The principle of self-government will not allow this to be done with safety, for the power of self-government is not to be intrusted to the whole human The half-savage descendants of the Spanish conquerors and the conquered natives of America are no fit depositaries of this power; the semi-civilized people of the Sandwich Islands are little worthy to be trusted with it.

race.

"But within our existing borders there are questions whose solution is pressing upon us. The great difficulties are those of so dealing with slavery as to bring good out of evil; and of so providing education for the poorer classes, that the destruction of the experiment of republicanism, which is here being tried on a scale commensurate with its importance, shall not be brought about by the ignorance of a portion of our own citizens.

"These questions are too complex to be entered upon here." pp. 130-132.

ART VI.-1. The Political and Historical Works of Louis NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, President of the French Republic. London: 1852.

2. History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Part I. New Series. Edinburgh New York: 1853.

3. Inaugural Address of FRANKLIN PIERCE, as President of the United States, delivered at Washington, March 4, 1853.

THE subject evidently suggested by these three publications, is the relations existing between the present governments of France, England, and America. We purpose, therefore, to inquire into the policies which these important powers have lately pursued, or are likely to pursue, toward each other, rather than to enlarge upon the intrinsic merits of the works themselves. If any exception is made, it will be in favor of our old friend, Sir Archibald Alison, whom we are not sorry to see, at last, a titled member of that aristocracy whose praises it has so long been his privilege to sing. The present time is a fitting one for such considerations, as the vapid but bellicose harangues of declamatory partisans during the last two or three years appear not unlikely to be superseded by decisive action.

Till quite recently, the true mission of the American Republic, involved as it is in the great ideas and facts of its history, has been regarded as a simple, but a sufficiently glorious one. A stern, perhaps an ascetic, people had come to a new world and founded their rude homes in a wilderness. Unfettered by feudal traditions, preserving as much loyalty as they had ever held toward a dishonored race of kings, persecuted and ridiculed in the country of their fathers, they still looked back affectionately to their friends and kinsmen in the land they had left, and, for their sake, rendered allegiance to its crown and its laws; they paid it tribute and fought its battles. After a time, driven to rebellion by injustice and contumely, they passed through all the stages and the trials of revolution, till a stable and independent government was established, a government which, from the very nature of the case, could not

have been other than republican. Imparting dignity and securing freedom to its own citizens, it has been ever ready to adopt the destitute and the adventurous of other countries, and to afford an asylum for the persecuted. Having increased, beyond all precedent, in wealth and strength, it has patiently awaited the time when, by its invincibility on the American continent, and by the example of its own prosperity, an influence might be peaceably exerted by it, in behalf of humanity and freedom elsewhere, more effectual than any that the bayonet has ever acquired.

The recent European revolutions have undoubtedly altered, to some extent, the aspect of our foreign relations. The demands of the people of Prussia for the constitutional privileges that had been promised them for their share in the War of Liberation in 1814, the partial fulfilment of these demands, the overturning of the French monarchy in 1848, the insurrections in all the capitals of the anomalous empire of Austria, the all but successful rebellion of the largest of her provinces, and the very act of interposition of the most formidable member of the Holy Alliance,—were events that excited strong interest and sympathy on this side of the Atlantic. It was then that the idea of active intervention in the affairs of nations upon the continent of Europe was first promulgated, a doctrine as short-lived as was the influence of its most distinguished advocate. Reaction was almost immediate. The Prussian monarchy was strengthened by the outbreak; France has exchanged the vagaries of the revolution for the iron rule of the empire; the vast possessions of the House of Hapsburgh are bound together by the strong arm of military despotism; and even the most sanguine of the believers in the might of American influence have become convinced, that popular enthusiasm is not always a safe guide.

But while no rural candidate for small municipal honors now thinks his claims to office are improved by the "fearless" advocacy of a hostile expedition to the Adriatic, allusions have been made, in much higher quarters, to a more practical alliance, which shall be offensive and defensive, and bound together by the same common bond of liberty, a suggestion not emanating from, or exclusively confined to the impulsive