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liberty all over the world. The whole continent was awakened, alarmed, disaffected, restless. From North to South, through the press, in private letters, as they met for counsel, or in groups in the street, the lovers of liberty unfolded their common griefs, and planned retaliation or redress. The right of taxation was indignantly denied. Opinion was echoed from mind to mind, " as the sun's rays beam from many clouds, all differing in tints, but every hue an emanation from the same fires." Amidst the prevailing darkness, light broke from the excitement of a whole people. In Virginia and in New England, associations were formed for the resistance of the Stamp Act by all lawful means. The watchfulness of a united continent was believed to be the best protection of American rights and liberties. While the seeds of discontent were everywhere scattered, there was no hope of relief, but in the prospect of union. In the daring language of Otis, there must be such a union as "should knit and work into the very blood and bones of the original system, every region, as fast as settled." The summons for a Congress was sent forth by Massachusetts. The first response was uttered by South Carolina. "She was all alive, and felt at every pore." Following the counsels of Christopher Gadsden-a man of earnest convictions, of transparent sincerity, with an adamantine will and strenuous integrity, with a courage that defied danger, and a persistence which nothing could shake, and cherishing a profound sense of religion, combined with an inquisitive and tolerant spirit-South Carolina pronounced for union. "Massachusetts," says Gadsden in an autograph letter in possession of Mr. Bancroft, "Massachusetts sounded the trumpet, but to Carolina is it owing that it was attended to; and had it not been for South Carolina no Congress would then have happened." Otis might now refresh his enthusiastic vision that "the State of longest duration, greatest glory, and domestic happiness, would be established on the American continent." He already heard the prophetic song of the "Sibyls" chanting the spring-time of a new empire.

The Congress, around which clustered so many hopes newly warmed into life, assembled in New-York, Oct., 7. 1765. The spirit that pervaded this body, presents a striking practical illustration of Mr. Bancroft's historical theory. Its deliberations were not founded on empirical suggestions. The wisdom which circulated throughout its actions, received its impulse, not from prudential calculations, but from a universal sentiment.

"Out

of the heart, arose the bright ideal of their dream." The first question presented, was in regard to the groundwork on which to rest the collective American liberties. Should they build on charters or natural justice on precedents or abstract truth-on special privileges, or eternal reason? While Otis and Johnson were in favor of resting the rights of the colonies on charters from the crown, Robert R. Livingston, of New-York-a man whose goodness of heart set him above prejudices, and equally comprehended all mankind, refused to place the hope of America on such a foundation, and the brave and noble Gadsden spoke against it with vehement impetuosity. It was his determination and advice to the delegates, not merely to stand on their essential and common rights as Englishmen, but on the broad ground of their natural rights as men. The difference of charters should make no difference in the claims of the respective colonies. There should be no New-England man, no Carolinian, no New-Yorker known on the continent, All should be Americans. These views prevailed in the Congress. The appeal for liberty was not founded on royal grants, but on human rights that were prior to charters, and would survive their ruin. The people caught the same spirit. From mouth to mouth flew the words of John Adams, 'you have rights antecedent to all earthly government: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the great Legislator of the universe."

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We have no space to follow Mr. Bancroft through his luminous exposition of the effect of the Stamp Act on the public sentiment of the colonies, and the discussions in Parliament, which terminated in its repeal. The volume closes with an account of the rejoicing in America, on the announcement of this measure. At first this was universal, and unmixed with apprehension. South Carolina voted Pitt a statue. Virginia expressed its gratitude by a statue to the king, and an obelisk, inscribed with the names of the defenders of American freedom in the British Parliament. Washington gave his cordial thanks to the opposers of tyranny. In Boston, a bright day in May was set apart for the celebration of the glad event. Expressive emblems of the general joy filled the town. The clergy joined in the universal acclamation, and the pulpit rung with patriotic eloquence.

Here we must take our leave of the historian for the present, trusting that the speedy appearance of another volume will again bring us into his company. His labors thus far, afford the richest promise

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of instruction and delight in his future productions. In this portion of his work, he has given vitality even to the arid details of Parliamentary discussion; a store of fresh information is imparted from original documents, new facts are fre quently stated, and old facts placed in a new light; while a spirit of rigid historical justice is preserved in the delineation

of events that are in the highest degree remote from the sympathies of the author. The complete work, for which every intelligent reader must eagerly look, cannot fail to be one of the noblest achievements of American literature. We may well be proud both of the history and the historian.

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ARE WE A GOOD-LOOKING PEOPLE!

WHEN our visitors would say, 'Well,

upon my word, Mrs. Primrose, you have the finest children in the whole country;' 'Ay, neighbor,' she would answer, they are as Heaven made them, handsome enough, if they be good enough; for handsome is that handsome does.' And then she would bid the girls hold up their heads; who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handsome."

America, too, like the wife of the immortal Vicar, while she holds to the good old proverb, handsome is that handsome does, has her allowable share of pride in the good looks of her children, and vain of their beauty, would bid her sons and daughters, hold up their heads. And a fine show they make, the American family of twenty millions, more or less, of blooming children, vigorous men, and good-looking women, all for the most part at work, in the school-house, the field, and the factory, the nursery and the kitchen; a nation, truly, of workers, living upon their dollar a day, and earning it; eating, not the bread of idleness and dependence, which is apt to be but short commons at best, but feasting upon the wholesome abundance, that skill and labor alone know how to create, and enjoy. Man has never had so fair a chance as in America, and it would be contrary to all the laws of development and progress, if with freedom of life and action, free to think, free to breathe, free to go, free to stay, he did not grow up in all goodly proportions.

of the criard, loud order, showy in color, and large in pattern.

Great things should be allowed to speak for themselves; it is useless to attempt to outroar the sea, or out-thunder Niagara. Any effort to assume the lion's part, must inevitably result in a Nick Bottom roar, as gentle as any sucking dove; and the eagle as well, had better be left to its own powers of voice, whatever they may be. The lion and eagle will both be heard all the better, without the squeak of diminutive animals, and the twittering of small birds. The "greatest nation in all creation" is not a tune to be set to Pandean pipes, to inspire the jig of a people's revels, on the occasion of America reaching her majority, and coming to her property. Jonathan, true to his business habits, had better take his share among other great nations, in the partnership of the world, as a silent partner; and with his real estate, expanding into a continent, and his balance account showing, in the census, twenty-five millions of people to his credit, should content himself with such facts accumulating in his favor, and go on, honestly and virtuously, as he has commenced, and leave the result to speak for itself; as such results surely will.

Modesty is no more an American than an Irish virtue, and we have not been backward in putting what we thought our best foot foremost, though it has been for the most part the worst, the one in the silk, and not that other in the home-knit stocking. Our talk generally keeps up pari passu with our walk; our speech is quite commensurate with our greatness; we talk big as we grow big; our style, with our smart doings for our theme, is like young America's trowsers, generally

It is true, we are not going to leave the Americans to speak for themselves on tho score of their good looks; it is so natural for beauty to turn away its head, and blush on such occasions, that a spokesman is necessary. Besides, we are not about to grow grandiloquent about grand things, to split the ears of the world with such loud-sounding themes, as greatness and glory, freedom and independence. Our part, just now, is nothing more than a little innocent gossip about the forms and faces of our countrymen and countrywomen; the color of an eye, the cut of a whisker, the turn of a nose or an ancle.

Are we a good-looking people? At the very proposal of this question, what a flutter among the gossamer beaux and belles; what oft-repeated and anxious con

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sultations of the mirror; what varied expressions; what smiles, what coquettish airs; what graceful swanlike arching of necks; what curveting and yielding, and voluptuous movements of form; what tightening of waists and expanding of busts; what anxious sidelong glances; what sly sprinkling of pearl powder and cunning touches of rouge; what deceptive lures; what positive orders to mantuamakers, and such overwhelming bills at Stuart's and Beck's! Compose yourself, Miss Belinda, it is not art, but nature; it is not fashion, but humanity; it is not the paint pot, but health; it is not you, but your maid, that has any concern in this matter.

By what theory of beauty are we to be guided in discussing this momentous question? Enough good and bad has been written about it, from Plato to Lord Jef frey. Plato says that there is nothing beautiful but mind, and would have us set our cap at an abstract idea, embrace it, and remain childless in the cold comfort of Platonic love. St. Augustine is said to have written an elaborate treatise on beauty, but it has never come to hand, and posterity has reason to congratulate itself; for it was, probably, as was proper in a reverend divine, only a heavy sermon upon the lightness of vanity, or a long homily upon the short-comings of this world; or possibly a commentary, too slow for this fast generation, upon the seventh commandment. Leibnitz held that beauty consists in perfection; so do we. My Lord Shaftesbury, who did not believe in a Supreme Being, had an undying faith in a supreme beauty; and contended that man was endowed with a specific sense to recognize it, and fall down and worship it. The great Burke, in his essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, holds that all objects that have the power of relaxing the nerves and fibres are beautiful; ergo, says Lord Jeffrey, a warm bath would be the handsomest thing in all creation. The nerves of Burke were evidently relaxed by the beauty of Marie Antoinette, and he gave the world an immortal illustration of his theory, in his panic-struck book on the French Revolution. Diderot

says, beauty consists in exciting the idea of relation. The idea of relations has a great deal to do, undoubtedly, with the modern conception of beauty; it is an axiom in fashionable life, that a woman, with rich relations, is a beauty; and that a woman, with poor ones, is decidedly the reverse. How would Diderot solve this proposition of Jeffrey in illustration of his theory? Given: three old women, fat, fatter, and fattest: find their beauty. Would he answer, they are beautiful, and

their beauty consists in their relation to each other, of comparative degrees of fat? We are inclined to think that Diderot, who was a Frenchman, and had a practical eye for beauty, would, in spite of his theory, go elsewhere for his Graces. Sir Joshua Reynolds was of opinion that mediocrity was the secret of beauty; that average form, color and expression, was the lex suprema, by which handsome men and women were to be judged. Then an ordinary woman must be a handsome woman. We leave Sir Joshua in the lurch of this reductio ad absurdum and his followers, without any rivalry on our part, to make love to all the ordinary women, in accordance with their theory. Hogarth held that beauty consisted in a crooked line, and would, of course, prefer a bowleg to a straight one, or the turned-up nose of a shrew, to the regular one of the beauteous Helen. Alison and Jeffrey contend that beauty consists in its associa tion with the emotions of the mind; hence, all women must be beautiful, when in the calf-sucking era of youth, any thing with the show of a petticoat excites the emotion of juvenile love. Others again, hold that beauty consists in utility; we need not say that this not only would make the maid necessarily handsomer than the mistress; but we would be bound, in obedience to this law, to admire our Irish cook in the kitchen, in preference to our young wife in the parlor; the former being equal to all the responsibilities of the cuisine, while the skill of the latter would be puzzled, as much as George the Third, with the perplexity of an apple dumpling, and wonder with that sapient monarch, "how the devil the apple got in."

We can get no aid from the philosophers. Let us question the practical experience of nations. Does beauty consist in the forty stone of John Bull, or the feather weight of Jonathan? Is Anglican Daniel Lambert, the fat man, or Yankee Calvin Edson, the living (dead now, by the by) skeleton, the type of beauty? Was the Hottentot Venus, who suckled her young over her shoulders and carried the rest of her family upon her natural bussle, or Madame de Pompadour, a beauty? Is the King of the Brobdignags or the King of Lilliput the genuine Apollo? Is the tall Patagonian or the short Esquimaux, the handsome man ? Is white, black, red, tawny or copper the color of beauty? Is the chalk and brickdust of a New York fashionable who dan ces every night from 11 P. M. to 4 o'clock A. M., or the black, sticky varnish, a good deal like conserve of grapes," with which the Thibetan women of fashion, as M. Huc tells us, daub their faces, the veri

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table complexion? Will the club feet of the Chinese or the splay feet of the negroes, walk the course for the prize of beauty? Will the black nails of the oriental beauty, filthy with henna, or the rosy-tipped fingers of morn, bear away the palm? Shall we whisper our love in the small ear of England's aristocratic dame, or in the monstrous speaking-trumpets of the Peruvian squaw ? * Shall we look for the beauty of wisdom in the flat heads and squat faces of an Indian council, or in the long heads and long faces of the Historical Society?

We are completely at a loss for a standard of beanty; both theory and experience are at fault, and we must fain judge according to our liking. We confess to a preference for Americans, for the royal family of the sovereign people, for our sons of enterprise, and our daughters of the household.

Almost all English travellers say flattering things of the good looks of the American people. Mrs. Trollope fell in love with the seemly appearance of the men, however she may have turned up her nose at their manners, and would have been pleased to have seen more of their handsome faces and less of the soles of their boots. It is true, Dickens's portraits are not flattering; but his Americans are mere scarecrows of the imagination to frighten away his countrymen who settle like crows in never-ceasing flocks upon our land. Thackeray, in his Kickleburys on the Rhine, paints a young American, as the perfection of a dandy Apollo, elegant by nature and faultless by art, with a good form in a perfect coat, with small hands in the smallest and smoothest of Paris gloves, and diminutive feet in the neatest of French boots. As for the morals of the young gentleman, the less that is said about that the better; of course Thackeray would not be Thackeray if he did not spoil the confection, by his usual sprinkle of a grain of salt or rather pepper, by way of reservation. Miss Martineau too fell in love with all Congress assembled, and if she did not indite verses to their eyebrows, wrote whole pages of prose about their eyes. She quite lost herself in the profound depths of the cavernous eyes of Webster, went astray among the wrinkles of Calhoun, and did not get fairly into plain sailing, until she launched out upon the broad forehead of some ordinary Congressman or other.

Mrs. Maury, in her book of travels, displays quite a gallery of miniatures of our

distinguished men. The pictures are all warmed with the intensest of rose-color, and done upon the smoothest of ivory. "Martin Van Buren has beautiful red hair, and bewitchingly frank and easy manners, and a voice that conjures men's hearts out of their bosoms." "The Hon. Mr. Benton has much senatorial dignity, a robust and muscular frame, inclined to corpulency, a massive forehead, and a broader nose, fuller lip and less wide mouth than is usual in the American contour; and with a neck and chest of very large proportions; has a gentle selfpossession." "Mr. Winthrop is fair, and his color comes and goes when he is speaking; his bearing is highly aristocratic. I shall never forget," says our lady, "the sweet faces of himself and his family." "Bishop Hughes is a glorious prelate; his violet robes, and his fiery character, his garments of delicate lace, and his manners so gentle, are charming to observe; his mystic signet ring of contrite amethyst, and his dignified address, unusual and peculiar," and Mrs. Maury un derstands that "the Bishop has a peculiar and inherent love of fine linen, which often distinguishes men of exalted character." "I could occasionally," says the lady, "detect a dash of the soft dialect of his coun try in his flexible and varied tones." And there are Clay, Webster, and Quincy Adams, and others to complete the gallery with all the beauty of the Greeks, the nobleness of the Romans, the grace of the French, the dignity of the English, and the bright colors of Mrs. Maury.

Whether the stock of English aristoc racy is depreciating or not, we cannot tell. We should think, however, that it was. A young friend of ours, Tom Snip, a gentleman by profession, who inherited a handsome fortune from his father, of the late firm of "Snip & Cut," Merchant Tailors, Broadway, has been abroad lately, and having got in payment in full for a handsome loan to a distinguished Senator, a letter of introduction to the American Minister in London, of course shook hands with all the court and the best society. Well, Tom Snip, who was well up, and a believer in Sir Bulwer Lytton and the Hon. Mrs. Gore, had not the least doubt that every English nobleman looked the lord and the Apollo Belvidere at the same time, and every woman of rank looked the noblewoman and the Venus de Medicis besides. That was certainly Snip's deliberate opinion; but Tom has returned home, a wiser man, ever since a hump

Montaigue says, "In Peru, the greatest ears are the most beautiful, which they stretch out as far as they can by art. And a man now living, says that he has seen in an eastern nation this care of enlarging them in so great repute, and the ear loaded with so ponderous jewels, that he did with great ease put his arm, sleeve and all, through the hole of an ear." theded a fuenle hote

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backed fellow was pointed out to him as a lord of the realm, and a red-haired virago as a peeress in her own right.

However the fact may be, as to the depreciation of the race of English nobles, there is no doubt that the barons of England have carried off some of our beauties, as the Romans did the Sabine women, and probably for the same purpose, though doubtless with less urging. There are the noted Court Beauties; the Duchess of Leeds, and her two sisters, Lady Stafford and the Marchioness of Wellesley, all Baltimore women; and Mrs. Bonaparte too, who, if she had her own right, would reign supreme in the court of her nephew Emperor Louis; and there is the New England girl, Mrs. Van de Weyer, the Belgian minister's wife; a galaxy of beautiful women, rare, and highly appreciated abroad; jewels that have been taken from the regalia of the sovereign people; but as bright and plenty of them still adorn our diadem, and though they may be set less richly, shine with no diminished lustre.

Whenever we hear of distinguished foreigners being among us, we begin to tremble for our belles, for fear that some marauding English baron may be on the look-out for beauty, or some French count on a foray for booty. The women had better be on their guard, and fortify their citadels with outworks of triple whalebone; intrench themselves within the strong fortifications of home, and take in a stock of the domestic virtues to sustain a siege from the enemy.

Look at our notabilities; are they not good-looking? better looking than most notabilities elsewhere? Take for example our new President Pierce, and compare him with Prince Albert; the former was certainly not chosen for his good looks-the latter was. The artists have done their best for Victoria's consort, and in spite of all their art, their cunning artifices, their flattering touches, their ingenious disposition of light and shade, and their courtly concessions of the true to the ideal, there is not a picture of Prince Albert in which he himself is not essentially the most insignificant object; the feathers and boots, the drapery and the background are infinitely more dignified and impressive; Albert's great pasty rollled out face without a line or an emotion, looks always like a blank spot in the picture. President Pierce, no thanks to art, has a face with a concentrated expression of energy, with lines of thought, and with eyes full of fire. President Fillmore, too, would take the precedence of any crowned head, in the court of beauty. How Napoleon le petit, the Emperor of all the French, dwarfs and shrinks by the side

of him! Mr. Fillmore is tall, portly, and has a frank, expansive face. Louis Napoleon is short, meagre, cold, and reserved; his face hidden for the most part in a thickset beard, where an expression of lust and violence lies in ambush. Louis, though no beauty himself, has, however, a taste for beauty in others, especially for the golden hair, the dark eyes, the blooming face, and the seductive graces of the Spanish Señorita Montijo. Having a caprice, as the French say, for la belle Espagnole, and unable to corrupt, he has sworn, with his bloody hand upon his heart, a Napoleon oath, to love and cherish her in the holy bonds of matrimony. Looking at General Scott, with the eye of an artist, where can you find a better model of a military hero? Lofty in stature; lifting his head high above the crowd of ordinary men; well proportioned; with broad shoulders and swelling chest; a firmly placed foot and erect posture; a brow of command; an eye of concentration; and a mouth of firm resolve; he has the look and bearing of a gallant soldier, and no wonder he scattered the Mexicans, and stalked into their capital a conqueror. The shade of Daniel Webster rises high among us in our Senate and tribunals, and in the assemblages of the people; solemn and portentous; with the serious aspect of the anxious patriot; the brow brooding with thought; the eye looking steadily into the darkness of futurity; the lips closing, upon their last words of eloquent utterance, in fixed resolve; a dark cloud gathering upon the manly face and presaging fate; and he passes away in the gloom of death. There never was a more noble-looking man than Daniel Webster, and it has been truly said that in appearance he was the ideal of a great statesman. Our poets and authors, Cooper and Irving and Longfellow, Melville and Lovell, are handsome and superior-looking men. Our artists too, for the most part, can find no better life studies than in their own looking-glasses.

Our crowds and public gatherings, our thronged streets show the best-looking aggregate of humanity, male and female, in the world. Walk up and down Broadway. Are there such becoming crowds on the Parisian Boulevards, or in the London parks? Such streams of life, glowing with beauty and glistening with bright eyes, and flowing on like a glad river sparkling in the sun. Was there ever such a holiday people? They are working men all, it is true, as most Americans are, with their wives and daughters, but there is none of the Pariah look about them, nor are they to be stared out of countenance by the impertinence of the old world's bloated importance. The men

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