IS MAN DEGENERATING? TABLE-TALK OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. N Tuesday, April 13, he and men in England now as ever there were. But, secondly, supposing the stature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing to luxury; for, sir, consider how very small a proportion of our people luxury can reach. Our soldiery, surely, are not surely, are not luxurious, who live on sixpence a day; and the same remark will apply to almost all the other classes. Luxury, so far as it reaches the poor, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before, it can reach but to a very few. I admit that the great increase of commerce and manufactures hurts the military spirit of a people, because it produces a competition for something else than martial honorsa competition for riches. It also hurts the bodies of the people, for you will observe there is no man who works at any particular trade but you may know him from his appearance to do so. One part or other of his body being more used than the rest, he is in some degree deformed; but, sir, that is not luxury. A tailor sits cross-legged, but that is not luxury."-GOLDSMITH. Come, you're just going to the same place by another road."-JOHNSON. Nay, sir, I say that is not luxury. Let us take a walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel, through, I suppose, the greatest series of shops in the world: what is there in any of these shops (if you except gin-shops) that can do any human being any harm?"GOLDSMITH. "Well, sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next shop to Northumberland House is a pickle-shop."-JOHNSON. "Well, sir, do we not know that a maid can in one afternoon make pickles sufficient to serve a whole family for a year? Nay, that five pickle-shops can serve a whole kingdom? Besides, sir, there is no harm done to anybody by the making of pickles or the eating of pickles." RIDICULE. JAMES BOSWELL. KNOW of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the minds of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachments of ridicule. Give not up to the world, nor to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion over every trifling question of manner and appearance. Learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule. If you think it right to differ from the times and to make a stand | tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke for any valuable point of morals, do it, how- of peace. ever rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic, it may appear--do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly, as a man who wears a soul of his own in his bosom and does not wait till it shall be breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel you are firm. Resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect, and no after-time can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him who made a noble and successful exertion in a virtuous cause. SIDNEY SMITH. THE AMERICAN INDIAN. AN ORATION. NOT many generations ago, now sit circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the Here, too, they worshipped, and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration. And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent and blotted for ever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of Nature, and the children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain, but how unlike their bold, untamed, untamable progenitors! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone, and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying to the untrodden West. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last waves which will settle over them for ever. CHARLES SPRAGUE. And thou, serenest moon, That with such lovely face Dost look upon the earth, Asleep in night's embrace, Tell me, in all thy round Hast thou not seen some spot Where miserable man May find a happier lot? Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe, And a voice sweet but sad responded, "No." Tell me, my secret soul, Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith, Is there no resting-place From sorrow, sin and deathIs there no happy spot Where mortals may be blessed, Where grief may find a balm. And weariness a rest? 66 JOHN LOWE. OWE was born at Kenmore, Oh, Mary dear, cold is my clay: Three stormy nights and stormy days But all our efforts were in vain. My heart was filled with love for thee; tor in her father's family and The storm is past and I at rest ; engaged to her sister. In A. D. 1773 he She from her pillow gently raised Her head to ask who there might be, And saw young Sandy shivering stand, With visage pale and hollow e'e: 66 Oh, maiden dear, thyself prepare; Where love is free from doubt and care, And thou and I shall part no more." 66 'Sweet Mary, weep no more for me." Take a message and a token to some distant friends of mine, "Tell For I was born at Bingen-at Bingen on the When the troops come marching home again Rhine. with glad and gallant tread, But to look upon them proudly with a calm and steadfast eye, "Tell my brothers and companions, when For her brother was a soldier too, and not they meet and crowd around afraid to die; my name To hear my mournful story in the pleasant| And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in vineyard ground, That we fought the battle bravely, and when To listen to him kindly, without regret or the day was done shame, Full many a corse lay ghastly pale beneath And to hang the old sword in its place (my the setting sun; father's sword and mine) And 'mid the dead and dying were some For the honor of old Bingen—dear Bingen grown old in wars The death-wound on their gallant breasts the last of many scars— And some were young and suddenly beheld life's morn decline, on the Rhine. "There's another-not a sister; in the happy days gone by And one had come from Bingen-fair Bingen You'd have known her by the merriment on the Rhine. that sparkled in her eye, Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning. "Tell my mother that her other son shall Oh, friend, I fear the lightest heart makes comfort her old age, sometimes heaviest morning! For I was still a truant bird that thought his Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the home a cage, moon be risen For my father was a soldier, and even as a My body will be out of pain, my soul be out child of prison) My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of I dreamed I stood with her and saw the struggles fierce and wild; yellow sunlight shine And when he died and left us to divide his On the vine-clad hills of Bingen-fair Bingen scanty hoard, I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword; And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine on the Rhine. "I saw the blue Rhine sweep along; I heard, or seemed to hear, On the cottage wall at Bingen-calm Bingen The German songs we used to sing in chorus on the Rhine. sweet and clear, |