"It is properly from the elevated mind of France that the folly of titles has been abolished. It has outgrown the baby clothes of Count and Duke, and breeched itself into manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has put down the dwarf to set up the man. The insignificance of a senseless and noble Duke, Count or Earl has ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrow the rickets have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gew-gaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immortal within the Bastile of a name, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man,

"Is it then any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not a great wonder that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they? What is their worth, nay, what is their amount? When we think or speak of a judge or general, we associate with it the ideas of office and character ; we think of purity in the one and bravery in the other; but when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of names, there is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect any certain idea of the word. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or a rider or a horse, is all equivocal. What respect, then, can be paid to that which describes nothing and means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript."

Acute sense, enlivened by antithesis, and condensed into the form of pointed maxims, cannot in pungency and effect

transcend this spirited tirade. Indeed, there are not many passages, even in Burke's celebrated Reflections, which called forth this reply, that surpass the above episode, in compressed power and epigrammatic point. We have looked in vain into the journals of the first Congress and the secret debates, lately printed, for a discussion on the proper title by which to address the President of the United States-whether His Excellency, or by what other designation. We looked into this matter at the suggestion of one far better fitted than ourselves, from his political studies, to resolve this problem. Yet it may be allowed to the generous advocate of the poor criminal, the humane legislator, to be slightly acquainted with what, at present, is no more than a piece of antiquarian curiosity. Human life and human improvement is of more consequence than titles of honor, and the abolition of capital punishment than a matter of form or of courtly address.

It is to be hoped that beyond the necessary terms of official appellation, titles will never be employed in this country, purely as stereotyped honorary epithets or unmeaning honors. We want men, not a nobility. We would honor greatness and goodness, virtue and talent untitled, far rather than title without either of these claims to attention and respect. We require the thing, and not the name. If we must have superfluous titles, let them be badges of dishonor, and to be avoided by every good man, good citizen, and true American.

* NOTE.-Since writing the above, we have been kindly referred to the proper volume. In the Journals of the Senate for the year '89, the question is discussed, of which only a brief minute remains. The debate lasted a week or more, during which the titles of Excellency and of His Highness, the Protector of our Liberties, were proposed, but objected to. The latter title was too much Cromwellian and monarchical

perhaps, for even the so-called black-cockade federalist. And, finally, the simple and appropriate address was resolved on of, the President of the United States.

XXXI.

ESSAYES AND CHARACTERES OF A PRISON AND PRISONERS:

BY GEFFRAY MINSHULL, OF GRAYES-INN, GENT.

THE object of this rare treatise, which is rather a collection of several short characters and fragmentary disquisitions, is to paint Life in Prison, and from the internal evidence it affords, no less than the later accounts of Howard, Buxton and Mrs. Fry, we dare affirm it to be a very faithful picture. Though modern philanthropy has effected much for the improvement of prison discipline, and the ameliorated condition of prisoners, yet still, in certain prominent particulars, a description of a prison more than two centuries ago, must answer to a description of the same place, at the present day. Dark, gloomy walls, barred windows, guards, jailors, locks, confinement, silence, are the outward marks of the prison, now as then. To be sure, the buildings are better, may be more elegantly constructed, are much cleaner, less turbulent; still a sense of solitude, a feeling of closeness, reigns within its precincts. The mere personal condition of prisoners is, in many respects, far preferable to what it was once. Yet, in these respects even, what great improvements still remain to be discovered and applied. But in more important points the system is little bettered. The prison chaplain, though (we trust) a different personage from the Newgate ordinary

in Fielding's time, is still ill paid, and altogether on a wrong footing. Intellectual light is virtually excluded from prisons, where even freedom of thought might be considered an infringement on the rules and restraints of the place.

In despite of all the works of benevolence, and especially of those deeds that tend to prevent the commission of crime, it is to be feared prisons must ever be filled. There is permanent evil in the world, and certain punishment, ever. Misfortune, poverty, vice, blind impulse, it is probable will always exist. Earth may never again see an Eden (the abode of innocence), till purged from grosser impurities by the last penal fires. Out of a world-conflagration only may universal peace and purity arise. Hence, we must conclude, the coexistence of crime and prisons for ages hereafter.

The prison described in this little volume, was a debtors' prison, the King's Bench. In our State, imprisonment for debt is now done away; a measure fraught with vast benefit, but, perhaps, accompanied by certain inevitable disadvantages. It is wonderful what enormities were suffered to be executed, until within a very few years, on this class of men, of whom, certainly, a considerable portion were innocent men, brought to that condition by the vices, or imprudence, or frauds of those, who stood in the relation of debtors to them. To this suffering, but respectable class of men, the author of this treatise (the fruit of personal observation and experience) does not appear to belong. From what we can gather, he was brought by his imprudence and folly to become an inhabitant of a prison.* He was a gentleman of

*A strong proof of family pride, rather misplaced, is evinced in the fact of the writer having his crest engraved on the title page. The experience the book displays is hardly of that nature a gentleman might be proud to display, even if enamored of his own cleverness as an author.

good family and liberal education, who was heartily disgusted by the place, its customs and company; and who earnestly advises all not to borrow, and run the chance of coming to the same place. He writes with the vigor of a strong character, and with no little elevation of sentiment; he is judicious and virtuous, with considerable erudition and quaint fancy, bottomed on good sense and manly feeling.

The composition of these essays and characters afforded the only occupation their author was willing to assume; and was at once his pleasant task and daily solace. The work of some antiquity; it was first published in 1618, and reprinted twenty years after. The edition before us is of 1821, a reprint by the famous Edinburgh publishing house of Ballantyne & Co. It is one of a small edition of 150 copies, and perhaps there is not a duplicate of the work in this country. We think it very probable that Sir Walter himself, or one of his antiquarian cronies, selected this remarkable tract for republication, and with the selfish admiration of a virtuoso, limited the impression to enhance its rarity.

We spoke of this volume as presenting a picture of life in prison it presents, also, its concomitants. The first character is of prisons in general; then of different sorts of prisoners; afterwards, in turn, of the company: of visitors : of the fare and entertainment: of the keepers, the jailors, the lockers up; and concludes with a relation of some curious local customs and personal observations.

The intention of the writer is expressed in a sort of proem to the characters. My purpose is, with cleare water-colours to line me out a heart, yea such a heart, so discontented and oppressed, that I need not be curious in fitting every colour to his place, or to chuse the pleasantest chamber to draw it in, because in it I am to lay downe the bounds of those tem