have beamed upon you, out of my scene. Not a gentleman that walks the street but should have beheld his own face and figure, his gait, the peculiar swing of his arm, and the coat that he put on yesterday. Then, too,—and it is what I chiefly regret,—I had expended a vast deal of light and brilliancy on a representation of the street in its whole length, from Buffum's Corner downward, on the night of the grand illumination for General Taylor's triumph. Lastly, I should have given the crank one other turn, and have brought out the future, showing you who shall walk the Main-street tomorrow, and, perchance, whose funeral shall pass through it!
But these, like most other human purposes, lie unaccomplished; and I have only further to say, that any lady or gentleman, who may feel dissatisfied with the evening s'entertainment, shall receive back the admission fee at the door.
"Then give me mine," cries the critic, stretching out his palm. "I said that your exhibition would prove a humbug, and so it has turned out. So hand over my quarter!"
Art. IX.—ABUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE
GOVERNMENT.
It seems to be very generally felt, that the morals of politics in the United States have declined gradually, since the establishment of our constitution; and yet there is no agreement in the opinions of men, as to the cause of the decline.
It can, we think, hardly be attributed to any general decline of morals in the nation; for careful observation shows us, that, while certain classes in our cities have been departing further and further from the true idea of a republican society, the people of the country at large, and especially the farming population, have been approaching nearer to it, and have thus more than compensated for the loss. The votaries of fashion and of pleasure have done something, certainly, to ingraft the vices and follies of Europe upon our native stock; and the debris of the immense flood of emigration which accumulates along our shores cannot but increase the
