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offices, civil, legal, or military. This apparently strange conduct may be, however, susceptible of some explana tion. It is admitted, I believe, on all hands, that there exists a sufficient quantity of talent of every various gradation in Britain; but the objection is, that it is not employed in the service of government, which, there fore, labours under an habitual, permanent imbecility. This inference is incorrect in itself, and founded on erroneous premises; for it rests on the assumption, that all the great talent of a country ought to be employed, in the guidance of its government. But, if this were ever to take place in any nation, it would, of itself, ens sure a perpetuity of resistless despotism; because, as power has always a natural and necessary tendency to increase in the hands of its holders, all the existing great talent combined together would, of course, bear down into hopeless subjection the general mass of folly, ignorance, and weakness, that is always floating in every community.

In every free country great talent is necessary to administer the government with wisdom, energy, and ef fect: and great talent is also necessary to constitute a formidable opposition to the existing administration of government, in order to prevent it from degenerating into an arbitrary and illegal use of its power, and to produce a most salutary exercise of the understanding in the reciprocal collision of mighty intellects: great talent is likewise necessary to carry on the learned professions of divinity, physic, and law, and the more active occupations of the army and navy, to enlarge the boundaries of literature and science, to improve the arts, to beautify, adorn, and strengthen the interior of the country, so that it might present a vast aggregate amount of intelligence, industry, wealth, population, physical and moral strength, for the government to wield, as an offensive and defensive weapon, with which to control other nations, to secure its own independence, to maintain its progression in power, to augment its resources, to consolidate its aggrandizement.

It is not disputed, that a high bounty is perpetually offered for the exercise of the greatest talents in general

science, letters, and arts, both speculative and practical, by the vast patronage, public and private, of wealth and honour, in Britain; and that this demand, in consequence, has produced the most splendid and successful effusions of genius and knowledge, in all these various departments of intellectual pursuit. To those who are acquainted with the past and present situation of the British empire, no proof is necessary to show, that there never was a period of its history in which so much talent was employed in all the departments of service and pursuit, whether private or public, as is now put into. constant requisition. And, as to the government itself, in the guidance of which so great a deficiency of wisdom is supposed always to exist, it is simply impossible to prevent a very large proportion of the talent and information of the country from being constantly employed in carrying on the administration of 30 extensive and complicated a system of policy as that of England, which unites great energy of action in itself, with an ample extent of personal liberty to its people. A vast amount of intelligence, skill, experience, discretion, and wisdom, is required, to give direction to her immense naval and military departments; to marshal and guide her parliamentary troops; to watch over, and guard the political well-being of her established national church; to manage and conciliate the great landed, moneyed, manufacturing, and commercial interests of the empire; to contend, both in and out of the senate, with an incessant and formidable opposition, of wealth, rank, influence, talent, and learning, employed in declaiming, writing, and acting against all its measures, whether right or wrong, from the most important down to the least significant of its transactions.

In examining the position, that Britain never employs a sufficient quantity of talent in the administration of her government, it may be remarked, that it is easier to guide the movements of a machine already made, and the uses of which are known, than to make the machine and set it in motion. A well-established government, like that of England, does not require all the highest talents of the country to be crowded into the administra

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tion. Having grown up in the habits, affections, and feelings of the people, its business can be regulated, and energetically carried on, by the superintending genius of a few great men, to guide its primary movements; and by men of decent, respectable talents, to execute its subordinate functions. The residue of its greatest and most commanding talents would be employed to the best advantage in diffusing the lights of science, art, and literature, over the whole community. A wide field for the production and display of great talent is opened in England, by always calling a respectable portion of high intellect into the service of the government; by occasionally raising up powerful minds, from the middle and lower orders of the people, to the great offices of state, and thus perpetually fanning the flame of honourable competition; and by encouraging the exertions of genius in every various department of scientific and literary pursuit, by rewards and honours. Perseverance in large and liberal study, and a regular adherence, through successive ages, to the great fixed principles of moral and political science, have raised and maintained the national spirit, and rendered its government, laws, intelligence, agriculture, manufactures commerce, and marine, at once the envy and admiratio of the surrounding world. The exhibitions of great talents always follow the demand for their display; and no effectual bounty can be offered for their general appearance, except in a free country, whose civil and military institutions are on a large and magnificent scale, holding out the only adequate incitements of wealth, influence, honour, and power, for their full developement.

It is a question of great importance for the statesman to decide, how far the letting loose all the talents of a community would unsettle every thing, and fix nothing. Certain land-marks, and boundaries of authority and habit, are necessary to govern men. If the judiciary, for example, were not by the veneration attached to their high office to restrain the license of the bar, no business could be transacted in a court of justice; but all the time necessary for the trial and determination of legal suits would be consumed in the clashing of judi,

cial with forensic intellect; and the same disorder would prevail, under similar circumstances, throughout all the departments of a government. Whence, it ap pears both wise and necessary to establish habits of implicit obedience to authority, to call a due portion of high talent into the administration, and to reward, by public applause and patronage, the exertions of genius, and the display of knowledge, in all the various branches of intellectual inquiry. The two only aristocracies of human nature, talent and property, must govern every country, or it will infallibly be destroyed, either by foreign conquest or domestic tyranny. But talent is merely personal and fleeting, while property is fixed and permanent, accumulating through successive generations, and consequently gives a poise and stability to the community.

If talent alone have sway, it produces a perpetual vibration of society from scheme to scheme, by its clashing interests and discordant collisions. But property, whether it belongs to a wise or a weak possessor, is in its nature stable; is a balance-wheel, which keeps the main-spring of talent from dashing the machinery of society to pieces; and in old well-established governments, the weight of property, by opposing the too rapid rise of talent, renders the talent which ultimately rises more mature, more powerful to combine the joint forces of experience, discretion, wisdom, and foresight, for the public service; and thus ensures a continual succession of able, and well-trained men, in all the great departments of state. In France, the revolutionary politicians did actually destroy the influence of property, and give to talent an undivided sway. What was the consequence?-an incessant hurrying of the whole community from one scheme of theoretic insanity to another; from one set of tyrants to another; until a military despotism fixed all the nation in the frost of universal bondage.

It requires a whole life of labour and wisdom, directed to the prosecution of mental and moral improvement, to build up the exalted character of a single individual; what, then, is necessary, in order to construct the per

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manent greatness, and magnificent exaltation of a whole community? Mr. Burke, after long and profound reflection upon the different forms of government, both ancient and modern, concluded, that nothing short of the hereditary transmission of property, and civil polity, through a long series of ages, is adequate to rear a nation into extensive and durable power. And yet Rome, during the space of eight hundred years, made herself absolute mistress of the greater part of the then known world, without the aid either of an hereditary civil polity, or an hereditary transmission of property. Undoubtedly, the number of great discoveries, or improvements, which have been suddenly made, in any branch of knowledge, is extremely small. For example, the greatest discovery in the science of political economy, the balancing system, has been gradually unfolded by the observation and experience of several centuries. That vast theory of political expediency regulates the mutual actions of contiguous nations; subjects each to the influence of others, however remote; connects all together by one common principle; regulates the movements of the whole; and maintains the order of the stupendous, complicated system of modern Christendom.

In the sixteenth century, the balancing system preserved Europe from subjugation to the Emperor Charles the Fifth; in the seventeenth century it rescued Europe from the grasp of French dominion, under Louis the Fourteenth; in the nineteenth century it broke the chains of slavery, which Napoleon Bonaparte was casting over the whole civilized world; and ere the close of this same century, probably, all its efforts will be wanted to stop the progress of Russia towards universal supremacy.

In a community where the legislature is composed of the effective aristocracy of the country; that is to say, of the best birth, talent, wealth, and character of the country; where the officers of the government sit in the representative assembly; and where large and liberal salaries are allowed to the public servants-there must always be a great portion of intelligence in the administration; and the affairs and destinies of the coun