er
wrote on a political subject was one that appeared in November, 1836,
in which he recommended the subversion of republican institutions and
the election of an emperor. If he ever had a political conviction, we
believe he expressed it then. After a rigmarole of Roman history and
Augustus Caesar, he proceeded thus:---

"Shall we not profit by these examples of history? Let us,
for the sake of science, art, and civilization, elect at
this election General Jackson, General Harrison, Martin Yan
Buren, Hugh White, or Anybody, we care not whom, the EMPEROR
of this great REPUBLIC for life, and have done with this
eternal turmoil and confusion. Perhaps Mr. Van Buren would
be the best Augustus Caesar. He is sufficiently corrupt,
selfish, and heartless for that dignity. He has a host of
favorites that will easily form a Senate. He has a court in
preparation, and the Praetorian bands in array. He can pick
up a Livia anywhere. He has violated every pledge, adopted
and abandoned every creed, been for and against every
measure, is a believer in all religions by turns, and, like
the first Caesar, has always been a republican and taken
care of number one. He has called into action all the ragged
adventurers from every class, and raised their lands,
stocks, lots, and places without end. He is smooth,
agreeable, oily, as Octavianus was. He has a couple of sons,
also, who might succeed him and preserve the imperial line.
We may be better off under an Emperor,--we could not be
worse off as a nation than we are now. Besides, who knows
but Van Buren is of the blood of the great Julius himself?
That great man conquered all Gaul and Helvetia, which in
those days comprised Holland. Caius Julius Caesar may thus
have laid the foundation of a royal line to be transmitted
to the West. There is a prophecy in Virgil's 'Pollio'
evidently alluding to Van. But of this another day."

A man who writes in this way may have readers, but he can have no
friends. An event occurred in his first year which revealed this fact
to him in an extremely disagreeable manner. There was then upon the
New York stage a notoriously dissolute actor, who, after outraging the
feelings of his wife in all the usual modes, completed his infamy by
denouncing her from the stage of a crowded theatre. The Herald took
her part, which would natura