e to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity
and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in
the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an
aristocratieal class. _Stet pro ratione voluntas_ is as dangerous in a
majority as in a tyrant.

I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out
without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views,
more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with
him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I
must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence
with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand
there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government
and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of
compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the
truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and
even rights, no society would be possible. _In medio tutissimus_. For my
own part, I would gladly--

Ef I a song or two could make
Like rockets druv by their own burnin',
All leap an' light, to leave a wake
Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!--
But, it strikes me, 'tain't jest the time
Fer stringin' words with settisfaction:
Wut's wanted now's the silent rhyme
'Twixt upright Will an' downright Action.

Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep,
But gabble's the short cut to ruin; 10
It's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap
At no rate, ef it henders doin';
Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 'tis to set
A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin':
Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet
Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren.

'Bout long enough it's ben discussed
Who sot the magazine afire,
An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust,
'Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20
D' ye spose the Gret Foreseer's plan
Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'?
Or thet ther'd ben no Fall o' Man,
Ef Adam'd on'y bit a sweetin'?

Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be
A rugged chap agin an' hearty,
Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D.,
Nut wut'll boost up ary party.
Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat
With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30
Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet
Stop squabblin' fer the gardingingin.

It's war we're in, not politics;
It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties;
An' victory in the eend'll fix
Where longest will