influence of the passions; and while hundreds were keener, abler in the exposition of subtleties, or more imposing with the mass, few were as often right, and none of less selfishness, than this simple-minded and upright gentleman. He loved his native land, while he saw and regretted its weaknesses; was its firm and consistent advocate abroad, without becoming its interested or mawkish flatterer at home, and at all times, and in all situations, manifested that his heart was where it ought to be.

In many essentials, John Effingham was the converse of all this. Of an intellect much more acute and vigorous than that of his cousin, he also possessed passions less under control, a will more stubborn, and prejudices that often neutralized his reason. His father had inherited most of the personal property of the family, and with this he had plunged into the vortex of monied speculation that succeeded the adoption of the new constitution, and verifying the truth of the sacred saying, that "where the treasure is, there will

the heart be also," he had entered warmly and blindly into all the factious and irreconcilable principles of party, if such a word can properly be applied to rules of conduct that vary with the interests of the day, and had adopted the current errors with which faction unavoidably poisons the mind.

America was then much too young in her independence, and too insignificant in all eyes but her own, to reason and act for herself, except on points that pressed too obviously on her immediate concerns to be overlooked; but the great social principles, or it might be better to say, the great social interests,—that then distracted Europe, produced quite as much sensation in the distant country, as at all comported with a state of things that had so little practical connexion with the result. The Effingham family had started federalists, in the true meaning of the term; for their education, native sense and principles, had a leaning to order, good government, and the dignity of the country; but as factions became fiercer, and names got to be confounded and

contradictory, the landed branch settled down into what they thought were Americans, and the commercial branch into what might properly be termed English federalists. We do not mean that the father of John intended to be untrue to his native land; but by following up the dogmas of party he had reasoned himself into a set of maxims which, if they meant anything, meant everything but that which had been solemnly adopted as the governing principles of his own country, and many of which were diametrically opposed to both its interests and its honour.

John Effingham had insensibly imbibed the sentiments of his particular set, though the large fortune inherited from his father had left him too independent to pursue the sinuous

policy of trade. He had permitted temperament to act on prejudice to such an extent that he vindicated the right of England to force men from under the American flag, a doctrine that his cousin was too simple-minded and clear-headed ever to entertain for an instant: and he was singularly ingenious in

discovering blunders in all the acts of the republic, when they conflicted with the policy of Great Britain. In short, his talents were necessary, perhaps, to reconcile so much sophistry, or to render that reasonably plausible that was so fundamentally false. After the peace of 1815, John Effingham went abroad for the second time, and he hurried through England with the eagerness of strong affection; an affection that owed its existence even more to opposition than to settled notions of truth, or to natural ties. The result was disappointment, as happens nineteen times in twenty, and this solely because, in the zeal of a partisan, he had fancied theories, and imagined results. Like the English radical, who rushes into America with a mind unsettled by impracticable dogmas,-he experienced a reaction, and this chiefly because he found that men were not superior to nature, and discovered so late in the day, what he might have known at starting, that particular causes must produce particular effects. From this time, John Effingham became a wiser and

a more moderate man; though, as the shock had not been sufficiently violent to throw him backward on truth, or rather upon the opposing prejudices of another sect, the remains of the old notions were still to be discovered lingering in his opinions, and throwing a species of twilight shading over his mind; as in nature the hues of evening and the shadows of the morning follow or precede the light of the

sun.

Under the influence of these latent prejudices, then, John Effingham replied to the remarks of his cousin, and the discourse soon partook of the discursive character of all arguments, in which the parties are not singularly clearheaded, and free from any other bias than that of truth. Nearly all joined in it, and half-an-hour was soon passed in settling the law of nations, and the particular merits or demerits of the instance before them.

It was a lovely night, and Mademoiselle Viefville and Eve walked the deck for exercise, the smoothness of the water rendering the moment every way favourable. As has been