"Ambition steeled him on too far of a convenient condescension to the minu-with-to discover his opinions tiæ of politeness, and the fascinating power loftiness and reserve repelled of address. He made an offer of Secretary adhesion which would have m of State to Lord Gower, whom he had re-manship, and the cause he fused when proposed for that office by his umphant. Like Napoleon in brother, Lord Temple. He made offers to resembled him somewhat in f Lord Scarborough, Mr. Dowdeswell, and several others; but in such terms of hauteur as seemed to provoke, though unintentionally, the necessity of refusal. To the first an abrupt message was sent that he might have the office, if he would; to the second, that such an office was still vacant; to a third, that he might take such an office or none. The offers were all rejected. He then waited upon Lord Rockington at his house in Grosvenor Square. But Lord R. refused to see him." All these circumstances tried his proud temper severely. The result of one of his offers must have been gall and wormwood to him. He hated the Duke of Bedford cordially. His Grace had thwarted his policy in the matter of Spain and the Family Compact; had done what he could to lessen the glory of Pitt, and in 1763 had signed away" with a single stroke of his pen," what had cost William Pitt so much travail of soul. Yet he was forced in the first year of his ministry to offer the Duke terms which were angrily rejected. Three years after, in the twentythird letter of Junius, the vials of longnursed wrath were poured in bitter variety upon the head of the Duke. Lord Chatham concluded his ministerial career, as he began it, in the midst of hostility. His political life was one long fight with the powers of Toryism, and his austere mind bore all the exasperating scars of the conflict. He was hated by the Courts of George the Second and George the Third, and denounced by the hired advocates of the royal prerogative. At the same time he had not the aid of that strong support which springs from personal attachment. Burke and others deplored his stern and unaccommodating character, which had too much of "the hardihood of antiquity" in it. Pitt had a genius and a will which indisposed him to those means of suavity and persuasion by which meaner men attain and preserve their ends. He could not stoop to conquer-though to stoop were only necessary for the purpose; and he was too prone to permit his inferiors--and these were almost all the people he had to do Such demeanor, in fact, "co and heated his enemies," to obliged Lord Charlemont to it possible such a man can b The first Whig himself—as Johnson termed Lucifer-co more disliked or feared by than this other great chief His plans and views of gov systematically opposed, and e use of to pull him down from place. All these asperities were aggravated by a heredita tormented him from his earli which without doubt helpe manners that stamp of sever teristic of them. This gou bound up with every thing was. In age it exasperated terity of his mind into sple in youth it had forced him to which he built up and informe intellect. Thus we may see how I was emphatically and necessa sary of that system of policy grown in the secresy of Le became the rule of governn accession of George the Third was the liberation of the crow gery and Pitt; and against th the energies of the latter al Junius says, in his Letter to t your accession to the throne t system of government was alt wisdom or deliberation, but been adopted by your prede can easily conceive how L would sympathize with any w of Junius, waged against th tries of George the Third. In his intellectual power an and his vituperative talent, cides with Junius as closely as in his political biases. Pitt, from his first speech in the House of Commons, was famous for an irreverent acrimony and looseness of tongue; witness his retort on old Walpole. His powers of sarcasm were very great, and his "eternal invective" passed into a proverb. Horace Walpole gives an account of a meeting which took place at the Cockpit in London in 1755, and at which Pitt spoke after his characteristic fashion. "Pitt," he says, "surpassed himself; and then, I need not tell you, he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure would they, with their formal, labored, cabinet orations make vis-à-vis his manly and dashing eloquence! I never suspected Pitt of such a universal armory. I knew he had a Gorgon's head composed of bayonets and pistols; but little thought he could tickle to death with a feather. On the first debate (on the Hanoverian and Russian Treaties) Hume Campbell, whom the Duke of Newcastle has retained as the most abusive counsel he could find against Pitt, attacked him for his eternal invectives. Oh! since the last Philippic of Billingsgate memory, you never heard such an invective as Pitt returned. Campbell was annihilated. Pitt, like an angry wasp, seems to have left his sting in the wound, and has since assumed a style of delicate ridicule and repartee. But think what a charming ridicule that must be that lasts and rises, flash after flash, for an hour and a half!" Once in the House of Lords he turned with an awful look upon his "dearest foe," Lord Mansfield, and, after staring him down and saying he had a few words to say to him, but that they should be daggers, he called out: "Judge Felix trembles! He shall hear from me some other day;" and, with that, resumed his seat. Something terrible seems to be here implied; something, we cannot help thinking, like that "storm" which Junius said he could raise, to make the Duke of Bedford "tremble even in his grave!" Lord Chesterfield, writing of Lord Chatham, says: "He was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing. He had manners and address; but one might discern through them too great a consciousness of his own superior talents. His eloquence was of every kind. His invectives terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction and such dignity of countenance and action, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him; their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over them." From all this it will be seen how William Pitt showed himself possessed of that irritable and commanding power of sarcasm, that vehemence of invective which are so distinctive of Junius, and which are to be met nowhere else in any literary or political character of the day. This palpable resemblance has led a few writers to what we consider the true conclusion and the man, such as we think will yet be recognizedin spite of the reluctance, chiefly of English critics, to think "Sublimity Pitt" could be fierce-hearted Nominis Umbra. A Cambridge friend, an excellent critic, and one familiar with the Georgian times, says he cannot believe that the grand old Earl could become such a Jupiter-Scapin as to perpetrate the Letters. But one's knowledge of human nature may explain all that. The greater the genius, the truer to humanity and its passions. The phil osophic Sir John Falstaff says pathetically, that he who has most flesh has most frailties. Analogously, we think the more genius a man has, the more is he prone to the irregularities or faults of the feelings. Great minds will be gloriously offendingthey will not be content to dwell in decencies for ever. One touch of passion makes the whole world kin-levels the porcelain intellect with the common crockery-ware. Chatham was truly a man, with all the male passions-able ministers-in full blow about him. Such a character, instead of contenting himself within vulgar bounds, will generally be found spurning and overpassing them, with the "brave disorder” the poet speaks of. The fact is, if William Pitt were incapable of being "Junius," he were, in the same degree, incapable of being Chatham. Our learned friend will please to recollect that Jupiter himself, according to the best accounts, had a large amount of the Scapin in his composition. Sed, sat prata biberant. The rest of our observations we shall offer next month. Chelsea. W. D. SPAIN AND HER POLITICIANS [THE following article on a neglected subject seems to require a prefatory note fro possibility of the political regeneration of Spain through the spontaneous action of her o by legitimate and orderly means, should be a subject of deep interest, especially in this at the present time. A perusal of the following pages will show that the hope of such by no means a vain one. It will be seen that she has men who have the true views, and willing to work for this result. Spain is regarded by the majority of persons as in a hopelessly retrograde state; and ti to be a band of desperate men among us who wish her to be considered as an outlay against whom no polítical crime can be committed. We have, however, at Washington tration which applies the doctrine of "strict construction" not only to our own rights, but of other nations; and as long as it lasts, at least, these desperadoes will find their schem as rapidly as they are formed. The author of this article has confined himself to general principles, and has not thoug discuss the more particular questions which divide the two constitutional parties, the Conservative, and Progresista or Liberal. Towards the former he has exhibited too grea not considered sufficiently the principles for which the latter have contended. Could these be fused together by mutual concessions, so as to insure the final destruction of what absolutism, (and there is much that remains, notwithstanding the Constitution, in spirit if we might confidently expect Spain to take rank among the foremost defenders of constitut in Europe.-ED] THE present condition of Spain is but lit- | tle understood in this country, and the interest we take in her affairs still less than our knowledge of them. Nor is this ignorance confined to ourselves. To the greater part of the Old World she is still a terra incognita, and even her neighbors over the Pyrenees can scarcely be said to appreciate her. In England she is, perhaps, better known than elsewhere, as, in some sort, Great Britain may be regarded as the tutelary divinity of the whole peninsula; the result of a variety of causes, not the least of which is, that the English are the deepest drinkers of the wines of Xeres and Oporto. It is true, indeed, that an indefinite notion that she is still the most romantic nation in Europe, and the interest which attaches to the Peninsular War and the struggles of Don Carlos, have, within the last twenty or thirty years, drawn many travellers to the more accessible parts of her territory, who have made us sufficiently familiar with her external life; while French and German geologists have exhibited to us with minute accuracy nearly the whole surface of the country. Her ventas, posadas, halls and balconies have still an irresistible c as it regards the products of her dustrial resources, her interior li origin of her political movements, edge is extremely limited. Her scarcely ever referred to by the great men are, with few exceptions And in proportion to our ignor scorn with which we regard her proud and imbecile, governed eit less demagogues, or by statesm for ever dealing in abstractions, unable to comprehend the world The causes which have plunge into this deep obscurity are too require remark. The chief of the less to be found in that profound rently hopeless subjection to abs into which she had begun to si to the death of Philip II., and i continued till after the beginning ent century; a condition of thi ing, on the surface at least, no pre ever of improvement, a calm waters which the angel would n to disturb; nor, although this e * Obras Completas de D. Francisco Martinez de la Rosa. Paris: Baudry. 1 lethargy was at length broken up, and Spain has been for nearly forty years in a state of agitation as constant as the political sleep into which she had previously fallen, has she yet been able to take a position sufficiently elevated to obtain the regard and respect of the world. "The emblem of our intellectual and political state," says the author of the memoir of De la Rosa, prefixed to the work the title of which we have quoted below, "is not the day but the night; a night clear, however, and sometimes illuminated by ephemeral glimmerings of light, sure presages of the dawn." To this cause of our want of interest in the affairs of Spain must be added, that our commerce with her is too comparatively insignificant to make her an object of paramount interest, while her insular position at the southwestern corner of Europe places her without the ordinary channels of communication through which we derive our knowledge of the greater part of the nations of that continent. This insulated position, indeed, prevents her from feeling immediately or very deeply the general European movement in politics and religion. Yet there are few nations which have stronger claims on our regard than this unfortunate State, whether we consider its history, the character of its people, or its natural resources. Of all the hordes that broke up the Roman Empire, this was the first that established a written Constitution. In every period of its history it has been fertile in men of genius. It has always had, almost without interruption, a brilliant national literature; and we need not mention that after the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, she held for a long period the most distinguished position in arts, arms and enterprise. To her we owe the discovery of our own continent, and it may not be useless to remember that the oldest town within our limits was founded by her. Her natural and industrial resources, also, are worthy of attention. The iron of Biscay, the great beds of coal in the Asturias, the wonderful lead veins of Linares and the Sierra de Gadór, the mercury mines of Almaden, the wheat of Andalusia, perhaps the finest in the world, her fruits, her wines, the vast flocks of sheep which browse on the mountain-sides of Leon and Old Castile, and in winter cover the plains of Estremadura, ought to entitle her to assume a rank second to no community whatever. In her spasmodic struggles for liberty during the last thirty-eight years, with much that is shocking, nay, horrible, she has frequently presented strong claims to our admiration, although her progress in the path of freedom has been much slower than so many efforts and so many bloody contests would seem to warrant. We have been frequently told of late that her affairs have returned again to a state of hopeless stagnation. Nothing, in our judgment, is farther from the truth. Spain has never been in a better condition since the reign of Charles III. than she is at this very moment. The last few years have shown us, we believe, that she has at length riveted a Constitution, the main feature of which is a legislature with two branches. For nearly half a century she has been oscillating between an absolute monarchy and a legislature of one house. In 1834, indeed, she gained a Cortes with two houses; but then there was no positive assurance that both would stand. Now we believe there is. Besides, the Spanish mind is evidently awake and active. There are now not less than sixteen journals in that kingdom, devoted not merely to theoretic discussions of the foundation of government, but to the physical and industrial condition of the country, and the best methods of developing its resources. Among the contributors to these journals are the first men of the nation. But, however this may be, Spain has already given convincing proofs that she has energy enough left to work her way to the light, and that she will at length assume her true position. Her resistance to Napoleon has surrounded her with a glory which nothing can dim, and is of itself a sufficient pledge to the world, that a nation which could win in a moment this immortal honor, although her subsequent career may not altogether have corresponded with its beginnings, will not fail at last of a complete redemption from political thraldom. It was asked by a contemporary lately, in a sufficiently harsh and scornful tone, whether Spain be capable of regeneration. In reply to this question we have not time to add any thing to what we have already said. It suits our purpose to say, only, that the great number of enlightened statesmen and men of genius, acquainted with the spirit of the age, and the condition and wants of their own country, whom she has produced since the year 1808, sufficiently manifests that her case is not a hopeless one. One has only to read the advertisements of books published at Madrid, to be convinced that the Spanish mind is still active on all subjects of thought and inquiry, and that the great mass of its literary productions is not designed as mere sources of amusement to the populace, or as satires on public manners, but has an intimate regard to the social and political well-being of the State. Among the most remarkable authors who have sprung up in Spain since the commencement of the present century, is Señor Don Martinez de la Rosa. He is little known in this country, but has long since achieved for himself a European reputation. It is not our present intention to enter into any special inquiry respecting his claims to be considered a genius, or into any criticisms on his works. It may be said, briefly, that no man of recent times has distinguished himself in so many and such different departments of thought and action. He has written at least ten dramas, all of which have been received with distinguished favor by his own countrymen, and one of which, the historical play of Aben Humeya, or, the Revolt of the Moors under Philip II., was first composed in French, and acted on the Paris boards* with great applause, and a considerable number of minor poems, which have always been popular in Spain. Among his miscellaneous writings are long, learned, and discriminating criticisms on Spanish poetry, as well as scarcely less interesting discourses on poetry in general, in the elaborate notes to his "La Poetica." "The Spirit of the Age," his great prose work, is evidently the production of a man who has thought deeply, and with sincere intentions, on the wants of the time, and the means of insuring a lasting and uninterrupted progress in social improvement. As a deputy to the Cortes, he has uniformly been distinguished for his eloquence; and it is certainly no mean evidence of his ability as a statesman, that, during a period of nearly forty years, he has been three times minister; that after passing through all the storms which have ravaged his country, almost without intermission, from 1808 to the present moment, having been once im At the Porte St. Martin. and st prisoned for several years, for a considerable period an exile have found himself, in 1843, sti as Ambassador to France, and in ing year Secretary of State. Sc this may be owing to fortune, b in great part, be ascribed to the talents. As other evidences of hi it is scarcely necessary to add, t member of many learned bodies, the Royal Academy of Madrid, dent of the Historic Institute During his residence in Paris, he quently employed himself in de fore its societies, and especially of which he was President, lect great poets, commanders, and n his nation. It is not so much, however, or his literary or political eminen introduce his name here, as of o present briefly the fundamental his political theory, which we only to be founded in truth, but v to be urged with the utmost f an age like the present, one of v tendencies manifestly is to insu and disorder. Before entering o ject, however, it may not be amiss in as few words as possible, a few which we have gathered from sev among which is the biography the work before us. He was born in the city of 1789, a year rendered remarka biographers have noted, by th many eminent persons in Eur whom may be mentioned Sir R Guizot, and Toreno and Isturitz of family being wealthy, no expense in his education. After having preparatory studies in ancient and acquired several modern he ran through the courses of mathematics, and the civil and c the university of his native provi much success that at the age of had completed his law studies, a ready in charge of a class in mo phy in that institution. At this period, 1808, the revol out with a great explosion on t May. It was preceded by com Aranjues in consequence of susp Charles and his family were ab grate to Mexico, and by the |