Nassau has been much agitated of late with liberal opinions, though the government is already what it is the fashion to term representative, on this side of the Atlantic.  It is the old theory, that small states can better support a popular form of government than a large state.  This is a theory in which I have no faith, and one, in my opinion, that has been fabricated to suit the accidental situation of Europe.  The danger of popular governments are popular excesses, such as those truculent errors that men fall into by a misconception of truth, misstatements, ignorance of their interests, and the sort of village-like gossip which causes every man to think he is a judge of character, when he is not even a judge of facts.  The abuses of absolutism are straightforward, dogged tyranny, in which the rights of the mass are sacrificed to the interests and policy of a prince and his favourites.  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