'On which the south wind scarcely breaks The image of the sky;' ----'Antres vast, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven;' and lastly, Niagara's rushing tide, the triumph of the grand in nature. The comparison might be continued in some other respects. The American Fall presents a plain, bold, and widely extended front, while the Canadian is sinuous, and bears deeper marks of the surges' wild career. In like manner the English government has been irregularly extended by the convulsions of time; enlarging its empire by every vicissitude, and swelling its resources even by calamity. Its institutions also have been essentially modified, almost revolutionized, during the long struggles for the emancipation of mind. On the other hand, ours exhibits the same unbroken and formidable outline by which it was originally bounded. Not a fragment has crumbled, but it has rather been rendered geographically complete. Relying upon no foreign possessions for its magnitude; upon no navy or army for its strength; it trusts the future to the guidance of the American mind; those mighty energies now unfolding in the sunny atmosphere of free institutions, and cultivating in that republican school which recognizes no degradation but ignorance, and no distinction save substantial and virtuous worth. Leaving any farther comparisons, which are idle except as a mere matter of novelty, it may not be amiss to consider the _pretension_ so often reiterated, that our institutions are levelling. What does this vague charge mean? Do they obstruct personal effort, or the pursuit of happiness, or the cultivation of the mind? Do they draw from the husbandman his earnings, from the artisan the fruits of his skill, from commerce its reward? No; so far from shackling man, the philosophy of all Americanism seems to be to open wide the gates to the field of human exertion; inviting every citizen freely to enter and reap according to his abilities; and emphatically to make the utmost of the powers which the Deity has bestowed. Where then is the prostrating tendency detected by the aristocrat in our institutions? It must be because they do not establish and sustain a Patrician race, exalted by territory, wealth, and prerogative. If this is the levelling into which such charges may be resolved, it has precisely a contrary effect, and is much more a matter of commendation than reproach. Republicanism does not seek the elevation of a few, but of all; and this principle is one of profound wisdom, guiding more directly to national greatness than any other political maxim, aside from its inherent justice to man. We have yet to learn that intellect and moral worth require the sustenance of hereditary wealth and place; while ignorance coupled with arrogance would merit contempt, no matter how it was habited. On the other side, aristocracies organized and sustained by law have in all