stability of the government, to have half a dozen men who had credit enough to raise themselves to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess?

A third ill effect of the exclusion would be the depriving the community of the advantage of the experience gained by the chief magistrate of the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind. What more desirable or more essential than this quality in the governors of nations? Where more desirable or more essential than in the first magistrate of a nation? Can it be wise to put this desirable and essential quality under the ban of the Constitution; and to declare that the moment it is acquired, its possessor shall be compelled to abandon the station in which it was acquired, and to which it is adapted? This, nevertheless, is the precise import of all those regulations which exclude men from serving their country, by the choice of their fellow-citizens, after they have, by a course of service, fitted themselves for doing it with a greater degree of utility.

A fourth ill effect of the exclusion would be the banishing men from stations in which, in certain emergencies of the State, their presence might be of the greatest moment to the public interest or safety. There is no nation which has not, at one period or another, experienced an absolute necessity of the services of particular men in particular situations; perhaps it would not be too strong to say, to the preservation of its political existence. How unwise, therefore, must be every such self-denying ordinance as serves to prohibit a nation from making use of its own citizens, in the manner best suited to its exigencies and circumstances! Without supposing the personal essentiality of the man, it is evident that a change of the chief magistrate at the breaking out of a war, or any similar crisis, for another even of equal merit, would at all times be detrimental to the community; inasmuch as it would substitute inexperience to experience, and would tend to unhinge and set afloat the already settled train of the administration.

A fifth ill effect of the exclusion would be that it would operate as a Constitutional interdiction of stability in the administration. By inducing the necessity of a change of men in the first office of the nation, it would necessarily lead to a mutability of measures. It is not generally to be expected that men will vary and measures remain uniform. The contrary is the usual course of things. And we need not be apprehensive that there will be too much stability while there is even the option of changing; nor need we desire to prohibit the people from continuing their confidence where they think it may be safely placed; and where, by constancy on their part, they may obviate the fatal inconveniences of fluctuating councils and a variable policy.

These are some of the disadvantages which would flow from the principle of exclusion. They apply most forcibly to the scheme of a perpetual exclusion, but when we consider that even a partial one would always render the readmission of the person a remote and precarious object, the observations which have been made will apply nearly as fully to one case as to another.

What are the advantages promised to counterbalance the evils? They are represented to be: 1. Greater independence in the magistrate; 2. Greater security to the people. Unless the exclusion be perpetual, there will be no pretence to infer the first advantage. But even in that case, may he have no object beyond his present station to which he may sacrifice his independence? May he have no connections, no friends for whom he may sacrifice it? May he not be less willing by a firm conduct to make personal enemies, when he acts under the impression that a time is fast approaching, on the arrival of which he not only may but must be exposed to their resentment upon an equal, perhaps upon an inferior footing? It is not an easy point to determine whether his independence would be most promoted or impaired by such an arrangement.

As to the second supposed advantage, there is still greater reason to entertain doubts concerning it, espe cially if the exclusion were to be perpetual. In this case, as already intimated, a man of irregular ambition. -of whom alone there could be reason in any case to

entertain apprehension-would with infinite reluctance yield to the necessity of taking his leave for ever of a post in which his passion for power and pre-eminence had acquired the force of habit? And if he had been fortunate or adroit enough to conciliate the good-will of the people, he might induce them to consider as a very odious and unjustifiable restraint upon themselves a provision which was calculated to debar them of the right of giving a fresh proof of their attachment to a favorite. There may be conceived circumstances in which this disgust of the people, seconding the thwarted ambition of such a favorite, might occasion greater danger to liberty than could ever reasonably be dreaded from the possibility of a perpetuation in office, by the voluntary suffrages of the community, exercising a Constitutional privilege.

There is an excess of refinement in the idea of disabling the people to continue in office men who had entitled themselves, in their opinion, to approbation and confidence; the advantages of which are at best speculative and equivocal, and are overbalanced by disadvantages far more certain and decisive.-The Federalist, No. 72.-HAMILTON.

FELTHAM, OWEN, an English moralist, born about 1602; died about 1668. He was a zealous royalist during the civil war in the reign of Charles I. He was secretary to the Earl of Thomond, under whose roof he wrote, at the age of eighteen, a little volume of Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political. This became very popular, and during his lifetime at least nine editions were issued, each containing large additions. To his latest editions. were appended Lusoria, a collection of forty poems. Several later editions of the Resolves have been printed, the last in 1840. He was also the author of several minor works in prose and verse. In the course of a criticism, Hallam says: "He is one of our worst writers in point of style; he is not only a labored and artificial, but a shallow writer."

LIMITATION OF HUMAN KNOWLedge.

Learning is like a river whose head being far in the land, is at first rising little, and easily viewed; but still as you go, it gapeth with a wider bank, not without pleasure and delightful winding, while it is on both sides set with trees, and the beauties of various flowers. But still the further you follow it, the deeper and the broader 'tis; till at last it inwaves itself in the unfathomed ocean; there you see more water but no shore-no end of that liquid, fluid vastness. In many things we may sound Nature, in the shallows of her revelations. We may trace her to her second causes: but, beyond them, we

meet with nothing but the puzzle of the soul, and the dazzle of the mind's dim eyes. While we speak of things that are, that we may dissect, and have power and means to find the causes, there is some pleasure, some certainty. But when we come to metaphysics, to long-buried antiquity, and unto unrevealed divinity, we are in a sea, which is deeper than the short reach of the line of man. Much may be gained by studious inquisition; but more will ever rest which man cannot discover.-Resolves.

MEDITATION.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass; whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if He were nearer hand. I persuade no man to make it his whole life's business. We have bodies as well as souls; and even this world, while we are in it, ought somewhat to be cared for. As those states are likely to flourish where execution follows sound advisements, so is man when contemplation is seconded by action. Contemplation generates; action propagates. Without the first the latter is defective; without the last, the first is but abortive and embryous. St. Bernard compares contemplation to Rachel, which was the more fair; but action to Leah, which was the more fruitful. I will neither always be busy and doing, nor ever shut up in nothing but thought. Yet that which some would call idleness, I will call the sweetest part of my life, and that is, my thinking. Resolves.

NO MAN CAN SEEM GOOD TO ALL.

I never yet knew any man so bad, but some have thought him honest and afforded him love; nor ever any so good, but some have thought him evil and hated him. Few are so stigmatical as that they are not honest to some; and few again, are so just, as that they seem not to some unequal; either the ignorance, the envy, or the partiality of those that judge, do constitute a various man. Nor can a man in himself always appear alike to all. In some, nature hath invested a disparity; in some, report hath fore-blinded judgment; and in