may wonder at the majestic courage of a Porcia, or an Arria, but we extol them chiefly because, being women, they emancipated themselves from the frailty of their sex, and displayed a heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and the bravest of men. We may bestow an equal admiration upon the noble devotion and charity of a St. Elizabeth of Hungary, or a Mrs. Fry, but we do not admire them because they displayed these virtues, although they were women, for we feel that their virtues were of the kind which the female nature is most fitted to produce. The change from the heroic to the saintly ideal, from the ideal of Paganism to the ideal of Christianity, was a change from a type which was essentially male to one which was essentially feminine. Of all the great schools of philosophy, no other reflected so faithfully the Roman conception of moral excellence as Stoicism, and the greatest Roman exponent of Stoicism summed up its character in a single sentence when he pronounced it to be beyond all other sects the most emphatically masculine. On the other hand, an ideal type in which meekness, gentleness, patience, humility, faith, and love are the most prominent features, is not naturally male, but female. A reason probably deeper than the historical ones which are commonly alleged, why sculpture has always been peculiarly Pagan and painting peculiarly Christian, may be found in the fact that sculpture is especially suited to represent male beauty, or the beauty of strength, and painting female beauty, or the beauty of softness; and that Pagan sentiment was chiefly a glorification of the masculine qualities of strength, and courage, and conscious virtue, while Christian sentiment is chiefly a glorification of the feminine qualities of gentleness, humility, and love. The painters whom the religious feeling of Christendom has recognized as the most faithful exponents of Christian sentiment have always been those who infused a large measure of feminine beauty even into their male characters; and we never, or scarcely ever, find that the same artist has been conspicuously successful in delineating both Christian and Pagan types. Michael Angelo, whose genius loved to expatiate on the sublimity of strength and defiance, failed signally in his representations of the Christian ideal; and Perugino was equally unsuccessful when he sought to portray the features of the heroes of antiquity. The position that was gradually assigned to the Virgin as the female ideal in the belief and the devotion of Christendom was a consecration or an expression of the new value that was attached to the feminine virtues. The general superiority of women to men in the strength of their religious emotions, and their natural attraction to a religion which made personal attachment to its Founder its central duty, and which imparted an unprecedented dignity and afforded an unprecedented scope to their characteristic virtues, account for the very conspicuous position they assumed in the great work of the conversion of the Roman Empire. From the "History of European Morals.» HUGH SWINTON LEGARÉ (1789-1843) UGH SWINTON LEGARÉ, a distinguished scholar and essayist of South Carolina, was born at Charleston, January 2d, 1789. His attention as a writer was divided between the classical studies, of which he was fond, and politics, into which as one of the best-educated men of his State, during its formative period, he was almost necessarily drawn. He represented South Carolina in Congress from 1837 to 1839, retiring to serve as Attorney-General and Secretary of State from 1841 to his death in June, 1843. His style as a prose writer is a valuable illustration of the evolution of American prose through forms derived from oratory. THE LIBERTY AND GREATNESS It HE name of Republic is inscribed upon the most imperishable monuments of the species, and it is probable that it will continue to be associated, as it has been in all past ages, with whatever is heroic in character, and sublime in genius, and elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. would not have been difficult to prove that the base hirelings who, in this age of legitimacy and downfall, have so industriously inculcated a contrary doctrine, have been compelled to falsify history and abuse reason. I might have « called up antiquity from the old schools of Greece" to show that these apostles of despotism would have passed at Athens for barbarians and slaves. I might have asked triumphantly, What land had ever been visited with the influences of liberty, that did not flourish like the spring? What people had ever worshiped at her altars, without kindling with a loftier spirit and putting forth more noble energies? Where she had ever acted, that her deeds had not been heroic? Where she had ever spoken, that her eloquence had not been triumphant and sublime? It might have been demonstrated that a state of society in which nothing is obtained by patronage— nothing is yielded to the accidents of birth and fortune where those who are already distinguished must exert themselves lest they be speedily eclipsed by their inferiors, and these inferiors are, by every motive, stimulated to exert themselves that they may become distinguished - and where, the lists being open to the whole world, without any partiality or exclusion, the champion who bears off the prize must have tasked his powers to the very uttermost, and proved himself the first of a thousand competitors — is necessarily more favorable to a bold, vigorous, and manly way of thinking and acting, than any other. I should have asked with Longinus, Who but a Republican could have spoken the Philippics of Demosthenes? and what has the patronage of despotism ever done to be compared with the spontaneous productions of the Attic, the Roman, and the Tuscan muse? With respect to ourselves, who have been so systematically vilified by British critics—if any answer were expected to be given to their shallow and vulgar sophistry, and there was not a sufficient practical refutation of it, in the undoubted success of some of the artists and writers that are springing up in our own times we should be perfectly safe, in resting, upon the operation of general causes and the whole analogy of history, our anticipation of the proudest success, in all the pursuits of a high and honorable ambition. That living, as we do, in the midst of a forest, we have been principally engaged in felling and improving it; and that those arts, which suppose wealth and leisure and a crowded population, are not yet so flourishing amongst us as they will be in the course of a century or two, is so much a matter of course, that, instead of exciting wonder and disgust, one is only surprised how it should even have attracted notice; but the question whether we are destitute of genius and sensibility and loftiness of character, and all the aspirings that prompt to illustrious achievements, and all the elements of national greatness and glory, is quite a distinct thing, and we may appeal, with confidence, to what we have done and to what we are, to the Revolution we are this day celebrating, to the career we have since run, to our recent exploits upon the flood and in the field, to the skill of our diplomacy, to the comprehensive views and undoubted abilities of our statesmen, to the virtues and prosperity of our people, to the exhibition on every occasion of all the talents called for by its exigencies and admitted by its nature; nay, to the very hatred the vehement and irrepressible hatred with which these revilers themselves have so abundantly honored us to show that nothing can be more preposterous than the contempt with which they have sometimes affected to speak of us. And, were there no other argument, as there are many, to prove that the character of the nation is altogether worthy of its high destinies, would it not be enough to say that we live under a form of government and in a state of society to which the world has never yet exhibited a parallel? Is it then nothing to be free? How many nations, in the whole annals of human kind have proved themselves worthy of being so? Is it nothing that we are Republicans? Were all men as enlightened, as brave, as proud as they ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted with any other title? Is it nothing that so many independent sovereignties should be held together in such a confederacy as ours? What does history teach us of the difficulty of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the glory that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who enjoy its advantages in so much perfection and on so grand a scale ? For can anything be more striking and sublime than the idea of an imperial republic, spreading over an extent of territory more immense than the empire of the Cæsars, in the accumulated conquests of a thousand years without prefects or proconsuls or publicans founded in the maxims of common sense employing within itself no arms but those of reason and known to its subjects only by the blessings it bestows or perpetuates, yet capable of directing against a foreign foc all the energies of a military despotisma Republic in which men are completely insignificant, and principles and laws exercise throughout its vast dominion a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending in one divine harmony. such various habits and conflicting opinions, and mingling in our institutions the light of philosophy with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achievement and extended domination, and deep-seated and formidable power! - From "Characteristics of the American |