kind. They have had to employ the organs of the sapienza volgare, or the general sentiments of human nature. They have had to touch what is of universal interest, and what moves the deepest passions of the human breast. In no language, nor in any age, do we find a single political writer, who ever felt he was in a position, with any theory or piece of political philosophy, to set these at defiance. Taken as an entire class, literary politicians of all ages have been men of broad and popular sympathies; and have founded their theories of polity-whether for or against change-whether of a practicable or impracticable cast,-upon the universal basis of human desires, passions, and instincts.

There is no class of writings owe less to private or public patronage and applause than those of a political cast. The majority of these authors have been repaid by sufferings and persecutions, of which many volumes would not suffice to give an account. Every general and comprehensive truth has had to make its way to the public mind through hosts of prejudiced and apathetic hearers; and from the days of Pythagoras, who had to flee from Athens on account of his political writings, to the present hour, the battle between interested ignorance, and sound knowledge, has raged with unabated violence, and determined hostility. We owe, therefore, to political writers, as a body, our highest meed of commendation and gratitude. They have always stood in the very first ranks of human progress, and practical freedom. Some of these brethren, in all ages have been tempted to lend their aid to perpetuate ignorance and oppression, but these have been comparatively few in number;

and even their temporary defection from sound principles and patriotic sentiments, had often a powerfully direct and beneficial effect in promoting, in the long run, the extension of real knowledge and information among the great family of mankind. The chief portion of scientific and philosophical writers on politics in all ages, have been men of noble views, and disinterested aspirations; anxious to diffuse the seeds of truth among the masses of the people; and who have boldly and fearlessly propagated their principles, amidst the most untoward circumstances-alike against the frowns of power, and the misguided feelings of popular sentiment. Every epoch of political literature has had its martyrs, who have cheerfully laid down their life as a sacrifice for these abstract principles of civil polity, which we now consider the common inheritance of the world.

We are, indeed, often called on to lament, and with reason too, the fate of some distinguished philosophers, whose discoveries in science only obtained for them the dungeon or the axe; but these have been comparatively few in number compared with the host of political writers, who, in their respective generations, have been doomed to bear the ill-will and contumely of the world. The accusation against Roger Bacon that he was a magician, or the sending of Galileo to prison for asserting the true theory of the heavenly bodies, are but slight matters contrasted with what has fallen to the authors of political speculations. They have been a proscribed and trodden-down race at all times and in all countries. The sufferings from the world's scorn and hate, which the cultivators of all other departments of human investigation have ex

perienced, would, if put together, be in comparison with the persecutions of political writers, only as the drop of water to the ocean. It is the political thinker who has had to bear the ingratitude, the apathy, and the unrelenting wrath of mankind. He, above all the 66 race that write," has felt the fierceness of power. Being generally a man of bold and independent mind, and of quick and disinterested feelings, his battling with society has always laid him open to every conceivable form and degree of mental anguish and bitterness. He has almost always stood alone, and been greatly in advance of his age. We see no government taking him by the hand;-no royal society or institution crowning him with laurels ;-no influential patron holding out his hand and his purse. He is the social Ishmaelite of his age, having his hand against every one, and every one having his hand against him. Dealing with truths and principles of the greatest moment to mankind, and imparting to society all that can adorn, and give stability and power to its structure, he lives without reward, and dies without honour.

As time rolls on, and wholesome and comprehensive political information extends its healing and enlightening influence among mankind, due honour will certainly be paid to this class of thinkers and authors. Their respective writings and merits will be better known and appreciated, and the great truths they developed and illustrated more firmly rooted in the understandings and memories of men. At present, political writers of the past are thrown into a promiscuous heap, as it were, and individual distinction can hardly be made; but this state of things will undergo a change, when the principles of the science of polity, extensive and

varied though they be, shall be properly assimilated to the public mind, and their history more fully and pointedly revealed. Erroneous legislation, party prejudice, narrow views, and popular delusions, may, for a season, retard the consummation of this end; but these will be removed one by one, and the entire science, and its historical progress, shall stand before the judgment of future generations, delineated in vivid and accurate distinctness.

New principles in politics must always be the result of pure speculation, and cannot, like many principles of natural philosophy, be verified by facts, previous to their public enunciation. We cannot make experiments on civil society as we do on material objects, because in all contemplated alterations and reconstructions of civil life, we should infallibly produce great actual mischief, and be successfully thwarted by the open resistance, and interested passions of men. Political writers have, therefore, little in the way of experiment to guide them. They are obliged to rely solely on à priori reasonings, and draw their arguments and conclusions from abstract rules and data. The general principles they advance always outrun the actual amount of the experience of the age. Hence they are for ever open to the erroneous interpretations, and the hasty and crude judgments of the multitude. But, as time moves on, such principles bring conviction home to the minds of men; and they gradually assume the appearance of every-day truths, which it would be the height of ignorance and presumption to call in question.

In contemplating the character and fortunes of literary politicians, I have often thought of a beautiful

passage in Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning, where he seems to have fallen into nearly the same train of thought. "Another fault," says he, "likewise much of this kind, hath been incident to learned men; which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good, and honour of their countries, or masters, before their own fortunes and safeties. For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians, if it please you to note it, my counsels to you are not such whereby I should grow great amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they be of that nature, as they are not sometimes good for me to give, but are always good for you to follow.' And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that Quinquennium Neronis, to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on his honest and loyal course of good and free counsel, after his master grew extremely corrupt in his government. Neither can this point otherwise be; for learning endueth men's minds with a true sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation; so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true and worthy end of their being an ordainment; and therefore are desirous to give their account to God, and so likewise to their masters under God, (as kings, and the states that they serve,) in these words, 'Ecce tibi lucrefeci,' and not, 'Ecce mihi lucrefici,' whereas the corrupter sort of mere politicians that have not their thoughts established by bending to the love and apprehension of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all times should meet in them and