The London “Times,” in its comments upon a recent desponding utterance of foreboding for our republic, by President Buchanan, in his Fort Duquesne Letter, affirms that the horizon of England is clearing while our own is darkening.  Mr. Bright, true to the omen of his name, thinks better of our country.  He seizes upon all fit occasions, as in his late speech at Manchester, to hold up to his countrymen the opposite view, so far at least as concerns our republic.  He loves to recommend to his constituents American notions and institutions.  Perhaps it may be allowed,—­though this is hardly to be affirmed, if any decisive argument depends upon it,—­that the peculiar institutions, political and social, of the two nations, have been on trial long enough, side by side, through the same race of men and in the pursuit of the same interests, to enable a wise discerner to strike the balance between them, in respect to their efficiency and their security as intrusted with the welfare and destiny of millions.  If we can learn to look at the large experiment in that light, all that helps to put the real issue intelligently before us will be of equal interest to us, from whichever side of the water it may present itself.  For ourselves, we believe that the best security against despair for our country is a knowledge of its history.  If the study of our annals does not train up patriots among us, we must consent to lose our heritage.  We are glad to be assured that our historians do not intend to allow the republic to decay before they have written out in full the tale of its life.  Their records, well digested, may prove to be the pledges of its vigor and permanence.

There are those in the land, who, for reasons suggested by President Buchanan, and for others, of darker omen, to which he makes no reference, do despair, or greatly fear.  What with an honest hate of some public iniquities among us,—­the tolerance and strengthening of which many of our politicians regard as the vital conditions of our national existence,—­and a dread of the excesses incident to our large liberty, it is not strange that some of our own citizens should accord in sentiment with the London “Times.”  Probably the same proportion of persons may be now living among the native population of our national soil, appeared at the era of the Revolution, preferring English institutions to our own, and predicting that her government will outlast our own.  Discussions raised upon the present aspect of affairs in either country will not settle the issue thus opened.  A real knowledge of our own institutions and a reasonable confidence in their permanence are to be found only in an intelligent and very intimate acquaintance with their growth and development.  In our histories are to be found the materials of our prophecies.