shall detect and expose, that secret viciousness of the constitution, or that insidious bane of popular governments, which brought us to the very brink of ruin, it will be the most instructive and important, as it certainly is the most mortifying portion of our history.- -Mr. Dwight's book might have been more appropriately entitled, A history of the diplomacy, foreign policy, and relations of the government of the United States, from the close of Washington's administration to the year 1815.' It consists for the most part of extracts from the diplomatic correspondence, executive messages, reports of departments, &c., of the period. As the work is professedly a vindication of the principles, measures and objects of the friends of the convention, it necessarily involves a crimination of the principles, measures and objects of the dominant party. From public documents and private correspondence, it is attempted to be shown, that "an ardent and overweening attachment to revolutionary France, and an implacable enmity to Great Britain, were the governing principles " of the administrations of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison. Mr. Jefferson's own declarations contained in his posthumous works, his opposition to the treaty of Mr. Jay in 1794, his repeated refusals to renew that treaty, his rejection of the treaty of Mr. King in 1803, relative to the northern boundary, as also of that of Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney in 1807, and his whole "restrictive system," are the principal proofs adduced in support of this proposition. "The evidence on which it rests," says the writer, "is derived from the public documents of the government, from state papers published by their authority, and from other sources equally creditable. Its authenticity therefore cannot be doubted; and the only question, that can be raised is, whether it is sufficient to establish the point for which it is adduced. On this subject, if the author is not greatly deceived, there will be little room for dispute. The chain of evidence is, in his opinion, entire, its credit unimpeachable, its force irresistible." This review of the origin and causes of the war of 1812, occupies about one half the volume. It is of course ex parte. But as it is made up principally of extracts from public documents and state papers, and that too, not garbled and tortured, but copious, unequivocal, and sometimes entire, we do not see how the force of evidence can be evaded. If these documents are allowed to speak out their "plain, unvarnished tale," the inevitable conclusion is, that the war of 1812 was unnecessary and unjust. The latter half of the volume is occupied with a review of the measures adopted by the government in the prosecution of the war, and the measures of the opposition in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the "Report" and "Secret Journal" of the Convention. Mr. Dwight contends that the country was utterly unprepared for war, so that the war, even if it had been just, was premature, and that the probable reason of its declaration at that particular juncture was, that it might operate as a diversion in favor of Buonaparte just setting out on his Russian expedition. The policy of the government in attempting to transfer the war from the United States to Canada, thus wreaking its horrors on the unoffending inhabitants of those colonies, and leaving the sea-board, by far the wealthiest and most important portion of the United States, exposed without defence to the incursions of a powerful maritime foe, he condemns in no measured terms. The claim set up by president Madison to control and subject to superior United States' officers the militia of the States, in view of prospective, not actual, or imminent invasion, is strongly contested, and the 'conduct of Massachusetts and Connecticut in resisting this claim, defended. That the president transcended the powers granted him by the Constitution, in attempting to reduce the militia to the condition of regular soldiers, and subject them to the "rules and articles of war," is, we think, clearly proved. That the governors and legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut adopted the legal remedy, is not proved. Mr. Story in his recent Commentaries on the Constitution, maintains that the president is necessarily constituted the "sole and exclusive judge of the exigency" in the first instance, and that every officer to whom the orders of the president are addressed, must obey. "At a very recent period," he says, "the question came before the Supreme Court of the United States for a judicial decision, and it was then unanimously determined, that the authority to decide, whether the exigency has arisen, belongs exclusively to the president, and that his decision is conclusive upon all other persons." The principle maintained by Mr. Webster in his reply to Mr. Hayne, and which is more fully developed and asserted in his speech in answer to Mr. Calhoun is, that resistance to laws of Congress, or to executive authority, by individual citizens or States, is " essentially revolutionary ;' that the constituted authorities are necessarily the judges in the first instance of the extent of their own powers, and that the only legal and constitutional mode of resistance to unconstitutional laws or extensions of executive prerogative, is by a resort to the "appellate power of the Supreme Court." As a curious and instructive illustration of the despotism of faction, and of the unconstitutional and tyrannical measures, to which in times of great party violence, virtuous and patriotic men may be led to resort, we would refer the reader to Mr. Monroe's (Secretary of War, 1814) "FIRST PLAN" for filling up the regular army of the United States by drafts from the whole body of citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five ;—a system of conscription, which, if it had ever been carried into effect, would have been more horrible and oppressive in its operation, 45 VOL. II. than was ever its archetype, the famous conscriptive system of the French emperor. In regard to the Hartford Convention itself, which grew out of these real or supposed violations of the Constitution on the part of the government, the right of citizens or States to assemble in Convention, under the Constitution, and deliberate on constitutional remedies for their grievances, cannot be questioned. This the members of the Hartford Convention professed to do. Their report is an able, temperate, patriotic paper. Their bitterest enemies have not been able to detect any treason in it. Their "Secret Journal" which is solemnly assevered by their president and secretary to contain "a faithful and complete record of all the motions, resolutions, votes, and proceedings of that Convention," is equally unexceptionable. It is time that the public mind were disabused of its misapprehension of the characters, motives, and objects of these able, patriotic and abused men. Mr. Dwight's book will do this for every candid man, who will read it. 5.-The Cottage Bible, and Family Expositor; containing the Old and New Testaments, with Practical Expositions and Explanatory Notes. By Thomas Williams. To which are added the References and Marginal Readings of the Polyglott Bible, together with Original Notes, and Selections from Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, and other Standard Works, Introductory and Concluding Remarks on each Book of the Old and New Testaments, and a valuable Chronological Index, the whole carefully Revised, and adapted to the use of Sunday Schools and Bible Classes, and Christians generally, embellished with Maps and Engravings. Edited by Rev. Wm. Patton. Complete in two volumes. New York: Conner & Cooke. 1833. pp. 1,440. MR. WILLIAMS, the English editor of these volumes, has endeavored to compress the substance of numerous and expensive works into the smallest compass, and to add in the most concise form, such practical suggestions and remarks as appeared to him to be important. He has frequently adverted to sciences connected with religion, and to the observations of travellers in the Holy Land, illustrating the curiosities of sacred literature. The introduction of Hebrew and Greek characters is avoided. critical notes, it is supposed, will require nothing but a common English education to render them intelligible. In the English edition, considerable portions of the text were printed in small type, to denote that they were "unsuitable to be read in families." Upon these the author furnished no exposition. In the American edition the type of the text is very properly printed uniform The throughout. With the exception of the books of Chronicles, an exposition has been supplied, by selections from Dr. Scott's Commentary. Mr. Patton has given a full and complete table of chronology at the close, and copious selections from the very valuable dissertation on the divine authority of the sacred Scriptures, prepared by the late William Greenfield, and which forms the Introduction to Bagster's Comprehensive Bible. The centre column, containing the marginal readings and references of the Polyglott Bible, have been added, as have very full contents of the chapters. The notes are considerably increased by selections from Bagster, John Owen, John Pye Smith, Watts, bishop Lowth, Keith, president Edwards, Willet, Poole, Henry, Scott, professor Stuart, and others. A variety of tables, wood cuts, engravings. on steel, and maps, greatly increase the value of the publication. A portion of the engravings were first inserted in Dr. Bedell's Religious Souvenir. Samson carrying off the Gates of Gaza, and the Crucifixion, are remarkably expressive. Over the crucifixion the genius of John Martin has thrown a kind of gorgeousness of sublimity, -"underneath them fair Jerusalem, We have made considerable use of the Cottage Bible for a few weeks past, and can testify to its general fidelity and orthodoxy. In the selection of comments and illustrations, the editors have gone considerably out of the common range, and have given new meaning and fresh interest to many passages. The text and principal commentaries are printed in large and distinct type. We cordially wish a large measure of patronage to the enterprise. It is exceedingly well fitted to the wants of Sabbath school teachers and Bible classes, as well as of families. 6.-Lectures on General Literature, Poetry, &c., delivered at the Royal Institution in 1830 and 1831. By James Montgomery. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1833. pp. 324. In the first lecture, the pre-eminence of poetry among the fine arts is asserted. In the second lecture, though Mr. Montgomery does not attempt to define the nature or essence of poetry, he affirms that "that which is highest, purest, loveliest, and most excellent to the eye or the mind, in reference to any object, either of the senses or the imagination, is poetical." The third lecture is taken up on the form, and the fourth on the diction of "Mr. poetry. He thus writes of a great contemporary poet. Wordsworth himself, though not a popular writer, nor one who ever can be, in the popular sense of the phrase, till the boasted march of intellect has made much more way than it is likely to do for half a century to come; Mr. Wordsworth himself has established a reputation of the proudest rank upon the surest basis-the admiration of the most intellectual class of readers, who can distinguish what is exquisite from what is puerile, what is grand from what is obscure, and what is imaginative from what is merely fanciful, in his own multifarious productions." Yet Mr. Montgomery thinks that he has accomplished this by going beyond his theory, "that in his most successful efforts, he has attired in diction of the most transcendent beauty, thoughts the most recondite, and imaginations the most subtle; "that when he would present ordinary things in an unusual way,' he is compelled to resort to gorgeous, figurative, and amplifying terms, and avail himself of the most daring license of poetic diction." In the fifth lecture, Mr. Montgomery makes some remarks upon various species of poetry-narrative, allegorical, dramatic, religious, didactive and descriptive, lyric, metrical romances, poetry for the young, translated poetry. The last lecture is occupied with some excellent remarks on the themes and influences of poetry. Five short dissertations conclude the volumethree containing a retrospect of literature from the earliest period to the twelfth century of the Christian era, and two exhibiting the condition of modern English literature. Montgomery is another proof that poets excel in writing prose. Where in Paradise Lost has the genius of Milton broken out in greater splendor than in the Areopagitica? The prefaces of Wordsworth are scarcely less interesting than the Excursion. In Montgomery's Prose by a Poet, and in the present volume, there are passages, which he has never rivalled in his poetry. The characteristics of his writings are a playful fancy, good sense, a sweet tinge of melancholy, great liberality of feeling and candor of judgment, and pure religious sensibilities. In the last respect as well as in some others, he deserves to be laid on the same shelf with Cowper. The volume shows in a remarkable degree how the spirit of an elevated piety may be diffused through all literature, silently though delightfully. The principal publications of Mr. Montgomery are Prison Amusements, Whisperer, Battle of Alexandria, Wanderer of Switzerland, West Indies, World before the Flood, Verses to the Memory of Richard Reynolds, Thoughts on Wheels, Greenland, Songs to Foreign Music, Songs of Zion, Pelican Island, Prose by a Poet, Voyages of Tyerman and Bennet, and Lectures on Poetry. He is now about sixty-three years old, and was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1771. |