ry to their country's welfare. The experience, the learning, the genius, the various coincidence of circumstances, which are neceffa ry to form that effulgence of character, by which they enlighten, polish and direct fociety, fall to the lot of few. When fuch lamps are extinguifhed, we are happy if our darkness be tranfient. But your wifdom the people of our Commonwealth fafely confide; nor as members of our united country, do they mourn like those in who are without hope; for although in the prefent gloom of our political hemifphere, their late ruling planet has travelled to the morning of another clime, yet its kindred luminary rifes on the horizon, brilliant, steady, and propitious to direct their courfe. They lament that their beloved WASHINGTON fleeps in death; their confolation is, that his faithful Brother, the vigilant ADAMS, furvives. FOR THE COLUMBIAN PHENIX. THAT HAT "the truth must not be fpoken at all times," is an old maxim. It may fometimes impofe filence, can never juftify falfehood, or prevarication. As a writer I must be my own judge, (for I have no counfellor) when to be filent, and when and what to write. I will not write without weighing and examining my own thoughts; and if poffible, I will think with candor, and impartiality. If my differtations are not shielded by truth, I ask no protection for them or their aus thor. If they contain truths spoken out of time, it is the error of my head, not of my heart. With those who hold it crime to throw a wet blanket on the fire of party fpirit, I ftand arraigned as a criminal already. Having learned my political and moral creed, in a fchool very different from theirs, my plea will be, not guilty, Knowing I fhall No. II. stand acquitted, and not only ac quitted, but applauded, by impartial and independent judges, I fhall purfue the course I have defigned to take, with fenfations very different from those of fear. Since the adoption of the federal conftitution, we have heard in general of but two political parties-Federalifts and Jacobins. How thefe names have been used and abufed, every American, from the fchool boy, up to the fage coiners of the words, already know too well. They are heteroclites too irregular for me to decline, Thofe who have used them moft, would find themfeves puzzled in all their variations, to give them any confiftent definition; to the numerous herd of wordmongers, who have learned the fashionable art of ufing epithets without ideas, I confign them over forever. In America, we have three political fects, who have ad hered hered uniformly to their refpective fyftems; and a fourth clafs, who do not deferve the name of a fect, fuch as are found in all countries, who act upon no fyftem, and adhere to no principles. The first, and moft refpectable in number, and I believe in influence, is that large majority of the community who, in principle and practice, are friends to our Conftitution as it now is. To thofe I fhall give the name of Confitutionalifts. This clafs includes all men of information, reflection, and found politics, who regard our conftitution, in theory and practice, as the temple of fober freedom, and a fafe barrier both to tyranny and faction. To this clafs belong alfo the great body of industrious, temperate, honeft citizens, who move in the more fubordinate, but not lefs important fphere of laborious life. Thefe are friends to their country, because they believe, and believe rightly, that there is no other country on earth, where people of their defcription, enjoy as they do, the rights and privileges, and feel as they do, and ought to do, the importance of independent freemen. Thefe are alfo friends to our Conflitution, because within their own memory and their own happy experience, it has contributed to their profperity and their peace; fo ftrong and fo well known is the attachment of this clafs of people to it, that few demagogues would be fo hardy as to openly attempt to feduce their allegiance. But pity it is, there are not wanting defigning men, men for whom traitors is a better name, who know too well how to abuse this attachment. If they cannot feduce it from the temple, they withdraw it from the priests. who perform its offices. But more of this hereafter. In fpeaking of this first political fect, this great and refpectable clafs of real Americans, I fhall not enter into the more minute and frivolous diftinctions which art, and folly, and ignorance, and paffion, have made, and which have been defignated by cockades and infidious names, that fhall never difgrace my pen. However the reafon of honeft men may have been deluded, or the vanity of difhoneft ones pampered by fuch diftinctions, I am perfuaded my enlightened countrymen, in retrofpective reflection, will hereafter think of them with other emotions than those of pride. I know of no fpirit more hoftile to the reafon, than that of political party. We have drank of it to intoxication. It was new to us. We received it at first, as friendly cheer, and thought it neceffary to our health. We have feen the experiment. It has been almoft as fatal to us, as the exotic fpirits of rum and brandy to the aborigines of our forefts. To the fubject. We will return from exotic fpirits; to exotic politics. I must now defcend to the painful tafk of defcribing two other fects that might with propriety be called organized diforganizers. These are the more to be feared because they both act, though not jointly, with uniformity and perfe verance in their feveral fyftems. Both are the profeffed friends of order and good government. But their school of order lies beyond a wide chaos of difcord; they would pafs through, before they will will become its initiated difciples. The governments which they admire are fome real or ideal ones, very far, and very different from our own, to which they transfer all their good wishes, and leave of courfe their bad actions to their own country. Thus far there is a fimilarity in the two parties. But they attack the ramparts of the Conftitution on oppofite fides, and their principles and their object, are totally ad. verfe and irreconcileable. There might, for this reafon, be the lefs danger from their hoftility, were it not that they have the addrefs to foment groundless diffenfions, among the well meaning, but ill informed, and to draw into offenfive operations many mifguided people, whofe hearts are wedded to a better cause. For these two fects, or parties, as they may be called with more propriety, I cannot find jufter names, than those they have given each other; Monarchifts and De The object of one is to concentrate all power in an energetic executive, which, if it have not the name, fhall have the prerogative of a King. Of the other, to take back a large share which is already vefted in our executive, and replace it in the hands of a fovereign people. The former party is, perhaps, the most to be feared from the number and influence of thofe who compofe it. The latter, from its wild unfettled notions of government, and the union they would naturally form with the unprincipled clafs, already mentioned, of political nothingarians. They only agree in what they diflike, our prefent Conftitution and administration, but have not even united in the theory of what they would have. 'The former look to Great-Britain for a model: as this model is ftable and regular, they have acquired uniform habits by contemplating it. The latter have their eyes on France, and have become almost as fickle, as the lunatic who gazes on the ever changing moon. Both, however, adhere to their feveral fyftems. Both would make us believe our liberty is not fafe under the federal Conftitution. The former would take it down with caution, and preferve fome of its materials, and furnifh others, to erect a stronger and more expensive one, in which we must make a free offering of one half of our liberty to fecure the other, and leave that fubject. to a mortgage, for our pofterity to redeem as they can. The latter would knock down the conftitution at once, put the whole ftock of our freedom, and the rights of man, into the French liberty cap, huftle for it, and take their chance. Under the guidance of the former, we might make fome calculation of the length and the fatigue and the expenfe of our journey to degradation, and of the burthens we must bear. The other would drive us the fhort road to inevitable and incalculable destruction. Thefe I have ventured to declare to be the principles of the Monarchifts and Democrats.Parties which, evidently exift in our country, but which have not, and I trust never will, gain strength fufficient to make an open avowal of their principles or defigns. They They profefs a veneration for the Constitution, and a love of our country. (They poffibly may poffefs the latter, if it can exift without the former.) They choofe it for a shelter, under which they may attack their enemies and gain friends. But believe me, the amending claufe is the only part they view with complacency. Here, like the enraged Irishman, in farce, they will attempt to turn the houfe out at the door. Happy would it be, if they had it not in their power, to difturb its otherwife peaceable tenants. Without thofe parties, we fhould undoubtedly have fome political contentions, and adminiftration diffentients: but they would be temperate breezes, that ferve to purify the atmosphere. It This analyfis may prove to fome "a ftumbling block," and to others" foolishness." speaks a language which I believe to be founded in truth, and that will be underftood by those to whom it is addreffed-men who have difcernment to judge of our political movements, and who have the ability, independence, and difpofition to give them a right direction. To place our enemies on their proper ground, and concentrate the ftruggle of our friends, is the with, and fhall be the perfevering effort of UNION. A PHILOSOPHICAL SKETCH of the PROGRESS of LITERATURE, from the Age of MARCUS AURELIUS, to the Commencement of the FRENCH REPUBLIC. By DE SALES, Member of the National Institute of France. AFTER four years of labour, Daniel, confecrated to the establishment of philofophy and history on their proper bafe, the ameliorating of the laws, the improvement of pub. lic manners, the endeavor to reconcile men to rational liberty, and citizens to the control of the magiftracy, I terminate my career by throwing myself into the arms of men of genius, whom I have ever loved and honoured, but whofe acquaintance not much cultivated, except indeed that of Homer, Tacitus, Montaigne, and thofe illuftrious ancients whofe works infpire us with genius, and without which all modern reputation would be like the image of clay. coloflus with feet of In the examination I make of thofe illuftrious characters who employ my pen, I fhall particularly endeavour to difcover their fecret principle of action, which prudence often, and that not to be condemned, obliges them to hide. This fecret principle of action is that alone which is not liable to contamination in the mind of man; it is that which ultimately forms the public opinion, and preferves the traces of virtue amid the changes and forms of revolution. I fhall be obliged, in performing this great undertaking, to fpeak of of academies which no longer exist, but are revived in our literary inftitution; and I fhall difguife neither the incalculable benefit they have been of to let ters, nor the failings by which they have been attended. This difcuffion naturally induces me to affume the tone of a critic: but from a fpirit of tolerance I would with my obfervations to be fuppofed to attach rather to facts, than to perfons; and when I fball be obliged to difclofe the veil which covers their foibles, and on which public opinion is always apt to put the worst conftruction, I would wish to draw my examples from fome diftant epoch, to filence contemporary vanity, under the venerable names of antiquity, and prefent truth to the mind of the refined scholar, through the medium of fable, This work fhall be free, it cannot be otherwife, fince the object of its author is true and enlightened literature; it is impoffible for him to breathe the spirit of flavery, who has pronounced with fo much energy the name of freedom. Thirty years has the Philofophy of Nature exifted. But this love of independence favours not the advocates of licentious manners: I admire not the apoftle of liberty, unlefs in his original purity. The moment that devotees difgrace, or traitors mutilate it; or above all, that factious men make it fubfervient to their own finifter defigns, I think it right then to fubmit it to the ordeal of the moral crucible, to feparate the virgin "gold of nature from the vile drofs with which man has contaminated it. In giving a true philofophical defcription of men of letters, it is neceflary to confider them either as ifolated, or forming an intellectual conftellation by their union in fome inflitution, literary fociety, or academy. The folitary labours of a literary man ought to yield in priority to thofe of him whofe views and talents are enlarged by liberal converfe with men of letters: juft as in a gallery of pictures, an artist examines not a portrait, till he has feafted his eyes on the historic pictures which furround him. After thefe preliminary obfervations, the reader may see what train of ideas has led me to the plan of this work. It feems proper that I fhould firft begin by a grand and rapid furvey of all thofe philofophic and literary affociations, which have extended the fphere of human knowledge, refined the arts, and enlightened the world by the concentration of its numerous rays. And as the human mind, any where running along career, muft leave fome traçes behind; it would be proper perhaps to fearch for the origin of those affociations among the Chaldee writers, the literary focieties of China, the facerdotal colleges of Egyptian Thebes, or of Memphis, the academy of Benares, and in all the Lyceums of the first ages. The brilliant age of Pericles would alfo be useful to affift this inquiry, which was never equalled, at leaft till the time of Montaigne, and that I am bold enough to call, by way of diftinction, the age of reafon. The connexion of events leads me to fpeak of Rome, which, during the fpace of feven hundred years, |