The Virginian

From the Marylander.

We recommend the following eloquent remarks, delivered in the British House of Peers, by that truly great man, Lord Mansfield, at a period of great excitement and embarrassment, to the consideration of many conspicuous actors on our own political arena. To some of our readers they are doubtless familiar-to others they may be new.

"If the noble lord means by popularity the applause bestowed by after ages on good and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that race; to what purpose, all-trying time can alone determine: but if he means that mush-room popularity which is raised without merit, and lost without a crime, he is much mistaken. I defy the noble lord to point out a single action in my life, where the popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my determinations. I thank God I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct-the dictates of my own breast. Those who have forgone that pleasing adviser, and given up their minds to the slavery of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity-I pity them still more, if vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of Fame. Experience might inform them that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execrations the next: and many, who, by the popularity of the times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have, nevertheless, appeared on the historian's page, when truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. Why then can the noble lord think I am ambitious of present popularity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown."