uld be aided by all
admirers of the English language. The just limitations of that reform
have not been indicated yet by any of the "reformers." That those
limitations will soon be surveyed and marked I do not doubt.

M. B. C. TRUE.

AN OPEN LOOK AT THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Macaulay, in describing the rise of the two great parties which have
alternately governed England during the last two centuries, traces the
division to a fundamental distinction which "had always existed and
always must exist," causing the human mind "to be drawn in opposite
directions by the charm of habit and the charm of novelty," and
separating mankind into two classes--those who are "anxious to preserve"
and those who are "eager to reform." It seems to us extremely doubtful
whether this theory, so neat and compact, so simple to state and so easy
to illustrate, would suffice to explain all the struggles, great and
small, that have agitated society, varying in character and
circumstances, and ranging from fervent emulation to violent
collision--from the ferment of ideas which is the surest sign of
vitality to the selfish and aimless convulsions that portend
dissolution. Applied to that condition of things by which it was
suggested, the theory may be allowed to stand. The history of
parliamentary government in England, in recent times at least, presents
a tolerably fair example of a contest between two parties composed
respectively of men who desired and men who resisted innovation--of
those who looked forward to an ideal future and those who looked back to
an ideal past. That the former should triumph in the long run lay in the
very necessity of things; but, whatever may be thought of the changes
that have taken place, no one would venture to assert that the contest
has ever been conducted with purely selfish aims; that no great
principles were involved in it; that the general mass of the voters have
been the mere tools of artful leaders; that appeals to the reason, or at
least to the interests or the prejudices, of the whole nation or of
different classes have been wanting on either side; that at any crisis
there has been no discussion of measures, past or prospective, no talk
of any question concerning the honor or welfare of the country; or that
victory has ever been achieved or contemplated by the employment of
mere cunning or fraud. But in a state of things of which one might
assert all this without fear of contradiction the exist