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COMPARATIVE STATEMENT,

Showing the monthly arrivals of Steamboats at the Port of St. Louis, from New Orleans, the Ohio, Illinois, Upper Mississippi, Missouri, and Cumberland Rivers, Cairo, and other Points, during the years 1850, 1851 and 1852.

New Orleans. | Ohio River. Illinois River. Upper Miss. Miss. Riv. Cumberland.[

Cairo. Other Points.)

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50 51 52 '50' 51' 52 1851 185250 251 252 250 251 252

301 300 330 1493 457 520 788 634 858

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10

1

13 12 17 7

80 65

45 35 32 34

13

9

12

60 65

72 58 28 37

12 6

76 87

82 57 46 57

6 17

78 55

57 42 48 38

3 11

4 15

1 13

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12 5 10

year.

Aggregate Arrivals during the past

635 639 705 390 301 317

43

30 75 119 223

215 175 201 3184

LITERARY DEPARTMENT.

Weight of Character.

BY MISSOURIAN.

We frequently hear this phrase: "He is a man of great weight of character:" what does it mean? Probably, it can not be defined so as to be made intelligible to all readers without circumlocution; yet there is such a quality. Perhaps we can approximate towards the meaning by illustration, by reference to the traits of persons who have won their way to fame, and acquired great weight of character. We can name some traits which have given men distinction, and shown how free they were from the infirmities which have degraded others and sunk them into the deep ocean of oblivion.

It will not be invidious to mention, among the illustrutions dead, those who were eminently distinguished while living, as having merited the title of this article. John Marshall among Jurists, though he did not possess the literary attainments of either his cotemporaries Jay or Kent; yet manifested something that stamped his judicial decisions with an authority that the others did not attain. In his commentaries on Blackstone, the New York Chancellor exhibits a profundity of legal ability, great acuteness in judgement, such perfect acquaintance with the business in hand, that his work has become a Text-Book wherever the principles of English Law are respected and the English language spoken; yet the cases adjudicated by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, will be cited and admired for their clearness and freedom from the biases that too frequently affect our frail nature, so long as justice is an object of human pursuit, and independence of thought regarded as among the highest attainments of mental and moral effort.

How did he acquire this eminence? Not so much by profound learning and ripe scholarship, as by an honesty of purpose in the pursuit of truth, and a purity of motive that controlled every step. In perusing the reasons that brought him to his conclusions, you perceive a straight-forwardness, a disinterestedness, that never yields to circumstances, or self-interest, or precedents, any more than as if they had no existence, and as if minor consequences had no influence upon his thoughts. You see the upright man, step by step, inquiring for the law and the truth so honestly and so free from party considerations, or the popular will, that you are con vinced he has reached the right of the case. Human nature, with its frailties, seems not to have attainted or touched the upright jurist: from these he seems as exempt as if he had lived and reasoned in an atmosphere where such weakness could not obtrude.

So it was with George Campbell among expounders of the Sacred Writings. While he admits his own ignorance, as every modest man will, in his deep researches after the real meaning of the inspired volume; he impresses the reader so strongly with his candour and perfect fairness in investigation, his freedom from prejudice and infirmity, that our convictions yield to the perspicuity intended to communicate. In the writings of his cotemporaries and predecessors, we discover frequent attempts to go "according to the analogy of faith," though the Bible were outraged in the effort; or, in his own language, they "attempt to correct the dietion of the spirit by that of the party;" but such was not the character of George Campbell of Marishall College, Aberdeen. With justice the expression of the poet was most applicable to him.

"Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri."

Among the critics of ancient or modern times, no one convinces scholars of his fitness to be a guide for the theological student, in a more eminent degree, than he whose name stands at the beginning of this sketch: few theologians have greater weight of character.

Lexicographers, in number are legion, and our own indefatigable Webster is highly prized, highly praised and with the million very popular; yet I can not regard him so decidedly authoritative as Richardson of England, or Worcester of this country. He is generally correct, and most of his definitions are exact in philological research, and according to the idiom of the language; but he could not divest himself of prejudice and other human frailty: he was affected and controlled by contiguous influences as is the compass, by the presence of mineral substances. It is not affirmed that in the definition of words having a political bearing, or those that concern the law of nations, he would, like some professed statesmen, lean towards his country "right or wrong" but his prejudices were too powerful, he was too much under the dominion. of that old tyrant to give truthfulness to all his definitions. He had knowledge enough, if that were the quality to confer weight of character upon a man to render him eminent, as a lexicographer, surpassing most of his profession; but a frailty common to our species would show itself at times and convince us that entire independence of thought, would have led to results different from such as was reached by the author of the great American Dictionary. Who should bear the palm among ecclesiastical historians, as possessing the most authority for integrity and truthfulness, it is difficult to determine. In matters of fact as well as in pure philology, the Germans are most to be relied on; for such kinds of labor eminently suit their genius; but their opinions of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, are crude and fanciful: their unbelief in evangelical religion, the religion of the New Testament, unfits them to become expounders: secret causes, that produced mighty changes and effects in the christian world, they did not understand.

Shall I name Politicians in this short paper? or will it excite the envy of that large class of citizens, to select one from their ranks of great weight of character, and hold him up as an object of veneration? Since the days of Washington, I could not select a more suitable name than that of Nathaniel Macon, of the old North State-the long tried public servant in the councils of the nation, who knew no North, South, East or West, but who legislated for his country, his whole country, without the dread of fear or hope of favor from any party or class of men. John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were vastly his superiors in learning, knowledge and eloquence; but neither possessed a feather of the influence that always accompanied the measures of Mr. Macon. In watching his movements in the chair of the House or of the Senate, or listening to his laconic speeches, you would not class him with either the Whigs or Democrats. So much was he absorbed in the welfare of the country, that he seemed not to know what clique or party meant. From the speeches of most politicians, you gather in the first sentence, which side they have taken, and in whose wake they intend to follow. It is to be feared that more time is consumed in defining positions than in pleading for measures to benefit the country. The aged Senator did not seem to have learned the tactics of looking first upon the Democratic and then on the Whig side of a question: he did not so understand his duties in the Legislature of the nation. It does the heart good, it makes an American proud of his country, to remember, even at this late day, the respect that was paid by every member, to the opinions and feelings of Nathaniel Macon, the man pre-eminent for his weight of character.

Many eclipsed him in attainments and in argument, in skill in diplomacy-they could get the better of him in argumentation and "make the worse appear the better reason:" but none knew better the wants and resources of the people for whom he was legislating, and no man's speeches, short as they were, had so much weight as those that dropped from the lips of the North Carolina Statesman. Other men had ends to accomplish, intimately connected with their own ambitious aims, and hence the sincerity of their motives was questioned, and opposition rose up as a mighty host. But suspicion as to the purity of his motives and the integrity of his purposes was never excited. Though opposition was at first formidable to some measures proposed by him; he was able to carry them by the weight of his own character. If the sacred records name one "in whom there was no guile;" American biography will be honored by the name of an honest politician, a statesman that knew not duplicity nor tergiversation.

If these short illustrations shall throw any light on the subject for the benefit of your readers, the writer will be gratified; for his research after the meaning of the caption of his paper, has brought to himself no small item of instruction.

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