INEQUALITIES OF LIFE.

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LACON.

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THE inequalities of life are real things, they can neither be explained away, nor done away; "Expellas furca, tamen usque recurrent." A leveller, therefore, has long been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to day, would have to begin it again to morrow. The things that constitute these real inequalities are four, strength, talent, riches, and rank. two former, would constitute inequalities in the rudest state of nature; the two latter, more properly belong to a state of society more or less civilized and refined. Perhaps the whole four are all ultimately resolvable in power. But in the just appreciation of this power men are too apt to be deceived. Nothing, for instance, is more common than to see rank or riches preferred to talent; and yet nothing is more absurd. That talent is of a much higher order of power than riches, might be proved in various ways; being so much more indeprivable and indestructable, so much more above all accident of change, and all confusion of chance. But the peculiar superiority of talent over riches, may be best discovered from hence-That the influence of talent will always be the greatest in that government which is the most pure; while the influence of riches will always be the greatest in that government which is most corrupt. So that from the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigor of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration. That talent confers an inequality of a higher order than rank, would appear from various views of the subject, and most particularly from this-many a man may justly thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever yet been able to return the compliment, by thanking his rank for his talent. When Leonardo da Vinci died, his sovereign exclaimed, "I can make a thousand lords, but not one Leonardo." Cicero observed to a degenerate patrician, “I am the first of my family, but you are

the last of yours." And since his time, those who value themselves merely on their ancestry, have been compared to potatoes, all that is good of them is under the ground; perhaps it is but fair that nobility should have descended to them, since they never could have raised themselves to it.

To cite examples of history, in order to animate us to virtue, or to arm us with fortitude, is to call up the illustrious dead, to inspire and to improve the living. But the usage of those civilians, who cite vicious authorities, for worse purposes, and enforce the most absurd practice, by the oldest precedent, is to bequeath to us as an heirloom, the errors of our forefathers; to confer a kind of immortality on folly, making the dead more powerful than time, and more sagacious than experience, by subjecting those that are upon the earth to the perpetual mal-government of those that are beneath it.

If those alone who "sowed to the wind, did reap the whirlwind," it would be well. But the mischief is, that the blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculation of diplomacy, seek their victims principally among the innocent and unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent, which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

As in agriculture, he that can produce the greatest crop is not the best farmer, but he that can effect it with the least expense; so in society, he is not the best member, who can bring about the most good, but he that can accomplish it with the least admixture of concomitant ill. For let no man presume to think that he can devise any plan of extensive good, unalloyed and unadulterated with evil. This is the prerogative of the Godhead alone.

A. C. JAMES, Stereotyper, Cin.