pier for such, he little knows the feeling with which the wayfarer in life returns from the wilderness of men to the shadow,

'Where once his careless childhood strayed,

A stranger yet to pain.'

We wish it were in our power to do something to call the general attention to the subject of respect to the dead. It gives a painful feeling, to pass through a city or village in our country, and to see the shameful desolation and neglect of the burial place, which, if no longer consecrated by religious acts, should certainly be held sacred by the heart. And yet, were it not for the monuments which here and there appear above the golden-rod and the aster, we should not know these from any other barren fields. A vile enclosure of unpainted wood is all that protects them from violation; and if any tree cast a friendly shadow over it, we may be sure it is one planted by the hand of nature, not of man. We have seen places of this kind in the country, which the fathers of the hamlet seemed to have chosen with a taste seldom found among the early inhabitants of any region, on the banks of rivers, or the borders of deep forests, where every thing around favored the contemplation to which the mind in such places is, and ought to be led, and have found evidence there of the degeneracy, not the improvement of their children, who had disappointed their designs, and suffered all to run to waste and barrenness, whether from want of refinement or from avarice, we did not know. It is perfectly surprising that none should be found to take away this reproach. Some of the most uncivilized nations are ages before us in their regard for these delicate and sacred feelings. They would not permit the young and beautiful, the aged and honorable, to be cast into a place so neglected, when even a dog who had been faithful would deserve a more honored grave. Our own evergreen cypress is as suitable as the Oriental to surround the place of death; and were it not so, we have many other trees whose character of form and foliage is well suited to the sad and thoughtful expression, which the common feeling requires such places to bear.

There is no need of urging the claims of this kind of improvement upon the inhabitants of our cities. They are in general sufficiently attentive to their public grounds; but one thing is a little remarkable in their proceedings; they confine themselves to a single tree. Can any mortal inform us why a spot

like the common of our city, for example, where thousands of trees might stand without interfering with the public or each other, should not afford specimens of other trees beside the elm? It is a noble tree, perhaps the finest that could be chosen; but the polished foliage of the oak, the light green of the plane-tree and willow, the various forms and shades of the maples, larches, and pines would break the uniformity of the scene, and relieve the eye. Moreover, groups of trees might be scattered here and there to advantage, without injury to the public; for if they should occasionally break the ranks of the train-bands, we apprehend that no serious consequences would endanger the defence of our country. Places for which nature has done much, require the more of man, because they offer him a vantage ground to begin his improvements, and constantly upbraid him if he neglects them.

ART. VI-Sir James Mackintosh.

A.H. Everett.

A General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By the Right Honorable Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH, LL.D. F. R. S. M. P. 8vo. Philadelphia. 1832.

Since the decease of Stewart, Sir James Mackintosh has been generally considered as the first living writer on Moral Philosophy in the English language. Until the publication of the work before us, his reputation as such had not been justified by any extensive, elaborate or scientific work, and was rather imperfectly sustained by his Introductory Lecture on the Law of Nations, by various anonymous publications in the leading periodical journals, and by the fame of his brilliant and powerful conversation. Political and professional pursuits had probably occupied much of the time which he would otherwise have devoted to what seems to have been through life his favorite study. The present volume will not entirely supply the deficiency which was felt before, and hardly does full justice to his great talents and various learning. It is, however, a very interesting and valuable production. We were preparing to give it the notice to which it is so well entitled by its intrinsic importance and the celebrity of the author, when intelligence was received in this country of his untimely death. VOL. XXXV.-No. 77.

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We call it untimely, for although he was somewhat advanced in years, and had nearly reached the ordinary term of human life, his intellectual and literary activity appeared to be constantly increasing. This fact had encouraged the expectation that he was destined to enjoy a protracted, fruitful and glorious old age. The lamented event which has disappointed these hopes augments our interest in the work before us, which now remains the only formal record of his mature opinions upon the most momentous of all subjects. Before we proceed to notice it, it may not be improper to offer a brief sketch of the leading events of his life.

Sir James Mackintosh was born in the small parish of Dorish, in the county of Inverness, in Scotland, on the 24th of October, 1765. His family was a branch of one of the principal Highland clans, and his father, who was a captain in the army, had little to bequeath to him but an honorable name. Through the kindness of some of his relations, who discerned the early promise of his future greatness, he was enabled to pursue the studies necessary to a liberal profession; and in the year 1787, he took the degree of doctor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. Some of our fellow-citizens, who were then pursuing their studies at that seat of learning, recollect him as a youth of ardent curiosity, wide research, engaging manners and brilliant conversation. Although the necessity of providing for his personal wants had compelled him to choose a profession, the superior attractions of polite literature and philosophy prevented him from studying it with any great earnestness, and it is understood that his attention to medicine was little more than formal. He, however, wrote and submitted to the medical faculty, on taking his degree, a Latin dissertation on muscular action, which was probably his first literary production, and which has since been republished. We are not informed in regard to its merit. Soon after leaving the university, he repaired to London, ostensibly for the purpose of practising as a physician.

It is probable, however, that he had no very serious intention of making the practice of medicine the occupation of his life; for we find him, immediately after his arrival at London, entering with zeal into political controversy. The King, George III., was at that time suffering under his first attack of insanity, and the great question of the day was the Regency.

Mr. Pitt, the minister, maintained that the power of the Prince of Wales as Regent should be strictly limited; while Fox, the leader of the opposition, and who enjoyed the confidence of the Prince, struggled to obtain for him nearly the whole extent of the Royal prerogative. Mackintosh made his début as a political writer, by the publication of a pamphlet in support of the views of Fox. The work attracted very little notice; and the author, disgusted perhaps at the indifference of the public, turned his thoughts for a time more intently upon his profession. For the purpose of increasing his qualifications for it, he visited Leyden, then the most celebrated medical school in Europe, and afterwards travelled in some other parts of the Netherlands. Soon after his return to London, his father died and bequeathed to him a small landed property in Scotland. Whether in consequence of this change of circumstances, or for some other reason of which we are not informed, he now quitted the profession of medicine, and entered his name as a student of law at Lincoln's Inn; where, after the usual course of preliminary studies, he was regularly admitted to the bar. In 1789 he married Miss Stuart, a Scottish lady, residing at London, without beauty or fortune, but of great intelligence and most amiable character.

That year will be forever memorable in the annals of the world, as the one which brought with it the opening of the French Revolution. The public mind in all parts of Europe was agitated by the same causes which produced the crisis in France. Mackintosh, like most other persons of his age, temperament and position in the world, sympathized ardently with the friends of reform, and waited with eager impatience for a suitable opportunity to take the field as a literary combatant on their side. This opportunity was soon afforded by the publication of Edmund Burke's celebrated Reflections on the French Revolution. Burke, though he had been through life an ardent, consistent, and doubtless most sincere champion of popular principles of government,-though he had sustained with all his might the cause of this country against the British ministry, during the controversies that preceded our war of Independence, did not feel himself obliged to patronize Revolution, merely as such, wherever it broke out; and looking at that of France by the lights of his long experience, deep learning and admirable sagacity, he thought he saw in it a tendency to anarchy, disorganization and national ruin, rather than

reform and liberty. With him, no opinion was ever adopted in a moderate or half-way form. Having taken up an unfavorable notion of the French Revolution, he thundered it forth to the world in his Reflections with a power of reasoning and a splendor of eloquence, which he had never reached before, and which no other political writer has perhaps ever equalled. It was, however, to borrow a figure from Lord Byron,

A thundergust against the wind.'

The current of public opinion continued for a long time to set with overwhelming force in England, as it did every where else, in favor of the revolution; and the mighty champion who had thrown down the gauntlet on the other side was forthwith met by a host of volunteers of all ages, sexes and characters. The first answer that appeared, was a pamphlet by Mary Wolstonecraft, the renowned advocate of the Rights of Woman. It was on this occasion that Paine published his wellknown Rights of Man. While preparing that work, Paine heard from a common friend that Mackintosh was also engaged upon an answer to Burke, and is said to have sent him the following polite message :- Tell your friend Mackintosh that if he do not make haste, my work against Burke will be published; after which nothing more on that subject will be read.' Such, however, was the fatuity of the public, that neither the labors of the political stay-maker,—such was the profession of Paine,-nor those of his fair customer, were thought to supersede entirely the necessity of further reply to the terrible Reflections. In the spring of 1791, Mackintosh published his answer, under the title of Vindicia Gallica, or a Defence of the French Revolution and its English admirers against the accusations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, including some strictures on the late production of Mr. De Calonne.'

This work evinces a remarkable degree of talent, although it possesses very little substantial and permanent value. The style is excellent, and distinguished the author immediately as one of the most powerful and elegant writers in the language. In this particular he sustains very well the dangerous compari son with his giant antagonist. To say this, is, of course, to give him the highest praise. As respects the substance, he appears to less advantage. At the present day, when we have all acquired upon this subject the tardy and worthless wisdom which follows