that it unites in one mass, a set of heterogeneous and unnatural bodies, which will naturally fly asunder on the application either of some exteriour attraction, or an introduction of some fluid, inconsistent with the cohesion of the composition. Congress should beware how they occasion the dismemberment of the compact, by persisting in a measure which is ruinous, unnecessary, tyrannical and unconstitutional, however favourably it be contemplated, and however mildly enforced.

The effects of the Embargo on the state of society, is not less prejudicial, than in relation to our political rights. Those people, who for the last year have been waiting anxiously for the change of the stream, and have seen it roll on, enlarging as it flows, from the idleness and perplexity natural to such a state, have been exceedingly relax in their morals and behaviour. It cannot be doubted that the tenden cy of such a law as turns men from their common occupations, must be repugnant to the moral quiet of civil society: it draws out the very sinews of industry, from the arm of labour; and causes in the relaxation of pleasure, and the gratification of passion, a more general prevalence.

Mr. Giles relies very strongly on our domestick dissensions to prove that the success of the Embargo policy has been frustrated in consequence; but this is paying a very poor compliment to the foresight or policy of the administration. Those dissensions of which he complains have existed ever since the present administration came into power; it is inherent in the nature of republican governments, that they should exist. To have made the fact of any importance, in his argument, he should have proved that a continuance of the Embargo policy would be likely to diminish the force of opposition; but so far from this, he talks just afterwards, very nonsensically to be sure, but he talks a great deal about rebellion; and of the ability of government to enforce the laws they have formed. If therefore, those laws have been defeated by our domestick discontents; if Great-Britain, in consequence of them, when they have been confined in their extent, and existing merely in words, has been prevented from altering her Orders in Council, in our favour; the result must be, that she will continue more rigorously to enforce them, now that the opposition is become more systematick, popular and violent.

The truth is, that our party dissensions form no part of the reasons which have induced Great-Britain to persist in the measures she has adopted. The causes are evidently; 1st. The interests she has in the continuance of the Embargo. The revolution in Spain, the relief of the English West-India colonies from a pressure of calamity, and the proșperity of her North-American possessions, are such appeals to her interests, as she cannot withstand; and the continuance of the Embargo operates in favour of them all.

2d. The hostile temper of the present administration of government which isrendered apparent in all our negociations with that power. It is evident first, in our commercial claims, which maintain the principle of "free ships, free goods," the universal protection of seamen under the American flag, in merchant ships, and the unlimited enjoyment of the indirect trade from the colonies to the mother country, to the enemy, in time of war. This hostile temper, was also made evident, by various official proclamations, and the unaccommodating clogs placed in the way of negociation with Great-Britain; but more particularly in a decidedly different deportment in our transactions with the French Emperour.

3d. The avowed object of the Orders in Council. As that measure was ostensibly adopted in order to retaliate on France, it cannot be removed until France consents to rescind her decrees, which although it is evidently her interest to do, she probably will continue to refuse.

We do not intend to be considered the advocates of Great-Britain in the injurious policy which it is the intention of the Orders in Council to carry into operation; on the contrary, we are ready to meet the question at any time, and wholly oppose the right of the British ministry to promulgate such a measure. France, to be sure, offered the first example of the profligacy of the doctrine, but that example is no jus tification to either party. All we mean to prove at present, is that our Embargo is not the means which is calculated to insure the removal of those orders; and that while abroad it is ineffectual, it is tyrannical at home.

The question here recurs of "what is to be done?" We say, at all events LET THE EMBARGO BE REMOVED; the longer it continues, our distress increases, and the advantages to foreign nations multiply. Then the question will be," shall we have war?" and if so, " with whom?” Or shall we pursue a more magnanimous policy? first by evincing a spirit of accommodation, which shall lead us to the relinquishment of doubtful rights, and of those formalities of negociation, which ceremony and not our honour dictate; and then (if we should fail of success, after all our concessions) let us exhibit another kind of spirit, a spirit of resistance, and a determination to enforce our just rights by our power, when we cannot attain them by our negociations. In the mean time we should put our national energies into immediate requisi tion; let us put ourselves into an attitude of defence, and then if our enemy insult us, we can meet him upon equal terms.

The difficulties in our future negociations with Great-Britain will derive most uncommon force, from the original impolicy of the Embargo laws. It has told her how well she can do without us, and proves to her the full extent of our hostility, as far as a total deprivation of our trade can go. She now is experiencing the various advantages which have resulted to her, some in consequence of the Embargo, and some not; but all of them depending on its continuance. She will not be

easily removed from the advantageous basis on which she has grounded her orders. The United States have never witnessed a period more deplorable than this, whether we consider it in relation to the peculiar situation of the belligerent powers, or to the impolicy of our own government, in their exteriour negociations. We are not, however, prepared to assert in unequivocal terms, that our safety and happiness cannot be restored, consistently with the punctilios of honour and the rights of independence. "There is no extremity of distress, which of itself ought to reduce a great nation to despair," is the remark of a great political writer; let us change our physician, or let him change his prescriptions, and hope will no longer languish in inaction, but revive to the prospects of returning prosperity.

We have now finished our contemplated review of Mr. Giles's argument on the Embargo laws: his style is every where distinguished by the modern peculiarities contained in the diction of both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, without the incorrectness which depreciates the composition of the former, or the ingenuity which sometimes characterizes the expressions of the latter. Mr. Giles is no where eloquent. When he attempts a flight, his wings seem clipped, he rises only to fall; he has no buoyancy to preserve his elevation. On the whole, we think the merits of this speech to be manifestly overrated; for whatever may be its plausibility, it certainly has very little strength of argument to support it; it is in our opinion, entirely visionary in the ideas; and although ostentatious, yet inaccurate and stale in the expression. If the present administration of government can find no better defender, they had better relinquish argumentation, and again adopt the safer policy of dumb legislation, and closed doors.

POETRY.

OF the imitators of the poetry of the NEW SCHOOL, we do not know any who has been more successful, or whose fame has been more widely extended by the adulation of panegyrick, than Mr. Henry Kirke White. His sensibility is excessive; every thing that exists under the customary state of things is wrong, and utopian schemes of unattainable felicity, of pastoral happiness, of German sentiment and feeling, are continually inspiring the imagination of his muse. He is like a number of other modern poetasters, morally mad: the force of custom, in neglecting certain vices, is absolute oppression; the pang of the punishment is alone to be considered, though the crime be ever so glaring,

The German poet is delighted with the secret sympathies of human nature, which unite hearts indissolubly, though the persons who possess them, had never before seen each other; he evinces his delight in the perfectability of man, by palliating the crimes of the poor, and exaggerating the vices of the powerful. His feelings expand at the sight of human depravity in distress, congeal at the intimation of greatness in good fortune, and are gratified at the slips and errours committed by those who are in exalted stations.

That Mr. White has tendencies of this kind, cannot be doubted by those who are acquainted with his distempered compositions. We have subjoined one of them, together with an imitation of our own, that our readers may see not only in how ridiculous a taste it is written; but that the object of it is unworthy of the eulogies and sympathies which he lavishes upon her.

We have extracted also, for the satisfaction of our readers, an Ode on this very Mr. White, which will exhibit a specimen of the encomiums which have been most profusely and undeservedly bestowed upon his genius.

ODE.

7

ON THE LATE HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

AND is the Minstrel's voyage o'er ?
And is the star of genius fled ?
And will his magick harp no more,
Mute, in the mansions of the dead,
Its strains seraphick pour?

A pilgrim in this world of woe,
Condemn'd, alas! awhile to stray,
Where bristly thorns, where briers grow,
He bade, to cheer the gloomy way,
Its heav'nly musick flow.

And oft he bade, by fame inspir'd,

Its wild notes seek the ætherial plain,

Till angels, by its musick fir'd,

Have, list'ning, caught th' ecstatick strain

Have wonder'd and admir'd.

But now secure on happier shores,

With choirs of sainted souls he sings,

His harp th' omnipotent adores,

And from its sweet, its silver strings,

Celestial musick pours.

And tho' on earth no more he'll weave

The lay that's fraught with magick fire,
Yet oft shall Fancy hear at eve,

His now exalted, heav'nly lyre,

In sounds Æolian grieve.

This will be sufficient to prove the admiration which this poetaster has excited; the following is one of his most serious compositions ; it is called the Prostitute, which character seems to awaken all his sensibility. Her weeping eye, the anguish of her heavy heart, her meretricious glances, her loathsomeness, her hollow eyes, are all objects of virtuous sympathy. He takes for granted, that such a class of females, as a body, have been seduced into infamy; and of course the seducers are branded with all the vengeance he can inflict ;

"God of the red right arm! where is thy thunder-bolt?"

But his notion of things assumes as certain, what is, to speak generally, very wide of the truth. He sees a wretch debased by crime and covered with infamy, and he immediately, from no other cause, imagines her to have been innocent, because some women have been seduced. This is no more than the overflowings of his modern revolutionary morality; it is not founded in fact, but springs spontaneously from a fancy naturally distempered, and heated burning hot with theoretick philosophy. This, we think is nothing more, taking the subject and application of the sentiment together, than a complete prostitution of talents. But let us hear Mr. White himself:

THE PROSTITUTE.

DACTYLICKS.

WOMAN of weeping eye, ah! for thy wretched lot,

Putting on smiles to lure the lewd passenger,

Smiling, while anguish gnaws at thy heavy heart;

Sad is thy chance, thou daughter of misery,
Vice and disease are wearing thee fast away,
While the unfeeling ones sport with thy sufferings.

Destin'd to pamper the vicious one's appetite;
Spurn'd by the beings who lur'd thee from innocence,
Sinking unnotic'd in sorrow and indigence.

Thou hast no friends, for they with thy virtue fled;
Thou art an outcast from house and from happiness ;
Wand'ring alone on the wide world's unfeeling stage.