Nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere) is as much in Nature as any figure from the pencil of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of Téniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which serves only to destroy the body that entertains it. But vehement passion does not always indicate an infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy disorder within and to repel injury from abroad. If ever there was a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the awful hour that Providence has now appointed to this nation. Every little measure is a great error, and every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the mark that we must aim at: everything below it is absolutely thrown away. Except with the addition of the unheard-of insult offered to our ambassador by his rude expulsion, we are never to forget that the point on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off was exactly that which had stifled in its cradle the negotiation we had attempted with Barthélemy. Each of these transactions concluded with a manifesto upon our part; but the last of our manifestoes very materially differed from the first. The first Declaration stated, that "_nothing was left_ but to prosecute a war _equally just and necessary_." In the second the justice and necessity of the war is dropped: the sentence importing that nothing was left but the prosecution of such a war disappears also. Instead of this resolution to prosecute the war, we sink into a whining lamentation on the abrupt termination of the treaty. We have nothing left but the last resource of female weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting decrepitude,--wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter a sentiment of vigor;--"his Majesty has only to lament." A poor possession, to be left to a great monarch! Mark the effect produced on our councils by continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we leave every one to abound in his own sense. In the minister's speech, glossing on the Declaration, it is indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only make a part of our _consolation_ in the circumstances which we so dolefully lament. We rest our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation, and the