rites. Now, in a large country,
popular excesses in one part are checked and repressed by the power and
interests of the other parts. It is not an easy matter to make a popular
error, that leads to popular excesses, extend simultaneously over a very
extended surface; and they who are tranquil, control, and finally
influence, those who are excited. In a small state, absolutism is held
under the checks of neighbourhood and familiarity. Men disregard
accidents and crime in a capital, while they reason on them and act on
them in the country. Just so will the sovereign of a small state feel
and submit to the authority of an active public opinion. If I must have
liberty, let it come in large draughts like learning, and form an
atmosphere of its own; and if I must be the subject of despotic power,
Heaven send that my sovereign be a small prince. The latter is on the
supposition that I am an honest man, for he who would rise by servility
and a sacrifice of his principles, had better at once choose the
greatest monarch he can find for a master. Small states are usually an
evil in themselves, but I think they are least so when the authority is
absolute. The people of Nassau had better be moderate in their progress,
while they of France should press on to their purpose; and yet the
people of Nassau will probably be the most urgent, simply because the
power with which they have to contend is so feeble, for men rarely take
the "just medium," though they are always talking about it.

We entered the palace at Biberich, which, without being larger than
usual, is an edifice well worth viewing. We could not but compare this
abode with the President's house, and certainly, so far as taste and
elegance are concerned, the comparison is entirely to the disadvantage
of us Americans. It is easy to write unmeaning anathemas against
prodigal expenditures, and extorting the hard earnings of the poor, on
such occasions, but I do not know that the castle of Biberich was
erected by any means so foul. The general denunciation of everything
that does not happen to enter into our own system, has no more connexion
with true republicanism than cant has to do with religion. Abuses of
this nature have existed beyond dispute, and the public money, even
among ourselves, is not always honestly or prudently expended; but these
are the errors inseparable from human nature, and it is silly to quarrel
with all the blandishments of life until we can find faultless