Then in Life's goblet freely press,
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give !

And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of wo,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live.

The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night,
He asked but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,-for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Patient, though sorely tried!

I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf !

The Battle of our Life is brief,

The alarm, the struggle,-the relief,

Then sleep we side by side."

No man can say, after perusing the poems of Mr. Longfellow, that we have not, at least, one true poet of inspi„ration,—nor can refrain from wishing, as we do now, the leave we take of him is to be but a short separation ;

that

and

that often and often are we, in the bold language of another poet of America, "to see the flash of his pen, and hear the

musical thunders which follow."

ART. IX. "Laissez nous faire." Reply of the French Merchants to Colbert, Minister of Finance, who enquired what he could do to forward the Commercial Interests.

In discussing the question of a discriminating tariff, adjusted with a view beyond that of mere'y raising a revenue, prohibitive or restrictive duties on imports are mainly defended on two grounds: first, as a means of fostering domestic industry in the shape of manufactures, and next, as a means of restraining the personal expenditure and habits of individuals within reasonable bounds.

It is pretty generally admitted, that the free intercourse system would be the most advantageous for the whole world, if every individual nation would adhere to it, and not vainly aim at benefiting itself, at the expense of others. The proposition, that the commercial interest of a community in the matter of purchases from and sales to another community, is made up of the commercial interests of the individuals who compose that community; and that, individuals will never continue to sell to and buy from foreigners, any articles that they could sell dearer or buy cheaper, either at home or elsewhere, taking all expenses of transportation, &c., into account; and that, therefore, when a commercial community exports some articles and imports others, it is because it finds its profit therein, of selling at the highest rate and buying at the cheapest, is so generally understood, now-a-days, as to be hardly worth discussion. Nor are people deceived with the idea, that, in importing any given article, they are destroying so much home industry, which would otherwise be employed in the fabrication of that article; for they are well aware that, inasmuch as they have to pay for that article in some of their own products, the home industry is employed in bringing forth the product they pay with; domestic industry being, in reality, equally set at work, whether you import the article from abroad, or have it made at home; the fact of such or such an article being made abroad and imported, and such or such other articles being made at home and exported, being merely and solely an index of the causative fact, that such or such articles are produced at a smaller expense of labor abroad than at home, or vice versâ.

But many alledge, that, allowing free commercial intercourse be subservient to the true interests of mankind in general, if universally adopted, yet it is a system, the partial adoption of which is prejudicial to those who adhere to it, by giving an advantage over them, to those who follow the opposite system.

An examination into the principles that govern mercantile communities, as well as individuals, in the exchanges that they make of their respective commodities, will clearly show that even in the case of a nation having to deal with another, which does not act on the same system of free intercourse, there is no possibility of the first nation coming off loser in a pecuniary point of view. If, for instance, Great Britain be so unwise as to say to us, we will not allow you (the United States) to import your grain and tobacco into our country at a reasonable rate of duty, then, certainly a market is cut off, and a branch of industry, for which this country is favorably situated, is checked. The United States are losers, and, more so, is Great Britain a loser, in not being able to get these articles so cheaply as she otherwise would. But, notwithstanding this, it still may remain a fact, that Great Britain can manufacture some particular articles cheaper than the States; it is, therefore, to the advantage of the States, to buy these articles in Great Britain, paying for them in such products as Great Britain will take, say in cotton, rather than to manufacture them themselves at a greater cost. Irritation at the foolish proceedings of Great Britain may suggest a retaliatory prohibition of those articles which she makes cheaper, but such conduct, however natural, is not to be defended on the score of interest. Because Great Britain will not do every thing that could conduce to her and our interest, in a commercial point of view, it is very unwise to say we will follow the example; and so, because half is already gone, we will sacrifice the whole of that which we want for our own commercial benefit. Although Great Britain may pass laws, by her falsely considered to conduce to her own aggrandizement, by de facto prohibiting certain products of other countries, yet she cannot either directly or indirectly compel or persuade us to carry on with her an exchange of commodities on losing terms, by our buying from her articles that we could make cheaper ourselves, or find cheaper else

where. There is nothing in the nature of a limited exchange of commodities that should make us reject it, because, under more favorable circumstances, a more extensive exchange might be made. The smallness of the trade does not make it, of consequence, an unfavorable one for us. It is still advantageous, though we may regret there is not more of it, but we can see no principle of self-interest that should lead us to throw away what amount of benefit its limited extent still allows us to draw from it.

It is clear, that, even when we deal with nations that do not meet us on equally liberal ground, a protective tariff is not defensible on the score of buying cheap and selling dear, which is the principle of commerce. Now, this is the principle which ought to regulate commerce, and does so, except where legislation interferes; it is a broad and natural one, the force and propriety of which, recommends itself at once to our spontaneous assent, and we ought to be very chary in admitting the soundness of any policy which goes to deviate from it. First principles can never be departed from, without evil consequences of a greater or less extent; they are so inwoven in the nature and frame-work of human affairs, that all attempts to work counter to them, for the sake of side advantages, not springing from them as their natural fruit, are invariably prejudicial. We may not always be sagacious enough to perceive the injury sustained, and the forced fruit we gather may fill so large a space in our vision as to make us forget, that, for the sake of it, we have foregone much better; but still the injury is sustained, and until we can show, that the principle of buying cheap and selling dear is a false principle, it is impossible fully to defend any system that includes a departure from it.

There is an inclination to stigmatize as theories, mere speculative delusions, the reasonings which go to harmonize our practice with the dictates of first principles. And the advocates of protection point to Great Britain itself as an example of the benefits of the system of protection. If they are told, that her most prominent statesmen abjure the system, they reply, that she only professes a willingness to abandon the policy she has hitherto observed, because she has no further use for the ladder that helped her to her greatness, and is anxious to discredit with other nations the use of those means by which they might attain a similar

position. It has, indeed, been very much the fashion amongst British statesmen, to attribute the naval preeminence of the nation to the navigation laws first laid down by Cromwell, and to point to the laws of the Edwards and others, protecting the British woollen manufactures, as the origin and foundation of that important trade. But if we examine more closely into the state of the case, we shall find, that Great Britain owes her commercial preeminence to far other causes. It is a common error to mistake for causes, circumstances that are merely coëxistent.

Freedom, in its general sense, and exemption from internal and external troubles and commotions, the security of property, and the stability of the laws affecting it, is, in truth, the source of the manufacturing and commercial prosperity of Great Britain. If we observe which have been the most flourishing commercial States of Europe, from the middle ages downward, we shall find, that they were always those, where, by comparison with other cotemporaneous nations, the greatest amount of freedom existed. The republics of Italy, where trade first sprung up,—Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, &c.,-guaranteed to their citizens more freedom of person and of pursuits, with more security of property, than was to be found elsewhere; and although the tyranny of Venetian magistrates has since become proverbial, it will be found to have been exercised less against property than against persons for political causes; but more than that, it will be found, that with the increase of tyranny came the decrease in prosperity of the republic; and that, as it became less conspicuous for the freedom which fostered them, so it became less renowned for its commerce and its manufactures, which, however little they are generally supposed to have in them of heroic and poetic, are certainly peculiar for their situations, where liberty is in any way restrained. Like the pilgrim fathers of old, they shake off allegiance to tyranny and oppression, of whatever nature, and wing their way to the seats of freedom. Holland was, for a long period, the most commercial nation of Europe, and it was, also, the state where the institutions were, at that time, the freest; where religious denominations, of every kind, met with least molestation. But, about this time, it began to be apparent, that while all the other nations of Europe were, from time to time, involved in foreign or civil