ing the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to fe choice; they were supported by her constancey; and, with all their abilities, they were never able to acquire any nie ascendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she remained equally mistress; the force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her y mine was still superior; and the tomb which her victory visibly cost her serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.fanions The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice, which is more durable, because more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure, or diminishing the lustre of her character. This prejudice is founded on the consideration of her sex

When we contemplates her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admiration of her great qualities and extensive capacity; but we are for fenity & to require some more softness of disposition, some greater fenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses by which her sex is distinguished. But the true method of estimating her merit is, to lay aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational being, placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind.

celebrated

3. HOWARD,E THE PHILANTHROPIST. - Burke. M

He has visited all Europe-not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art, nor to collect medals, or collate mănuscripts;100 but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original; it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity.

4. MILTON.

investon 1668 and 1674 Quarterly Review.

It is impossible to refuse to Milton the honor due to a life of the sincerest piety and the most dignific virtue. No man ever lived under a more abiding sense of responsibility. No man ever

a

strove more faithfully to use time and talent" as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye." No man so richly endowed was ever less ready to trust in his own powers, or more prompt to own his dependence on "that eternal and propitial throne, where nothing is readier than grace and refuge to the distresses of mortal suppliants." His morality was of the loftiest order. He possessed self-control which, in one susceptible of such vehement emotions, was marvellous. No one ever saw him indulging in those propensities which overcloud the mind and pollute the heart. pitiable No youthful excesses treasured up for him a suffering and remorseful old age. From his youth up he was temperate in all things, as became one who had consecrated himself to a lifestruggle against vice, and error, and darkness, in all their forms. He had started with the conviction "that he who would not his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition of the best and honorablest things; " and from this he

be frustrated

and Ped. His life was indeed a true poem; or it might be

never

compared to an anthem on his own favorite organ-high-toned,
solemn, and majestic.

The character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, light. It is associated and blended with all our reflections on those things which are near and dear to us

steady, behining

If we think of the independence of our country, we think of him
whose efforts were so prominent An achieving it; if we think of
the constitution which is over us, we think of him who did so
much to establish it, and whose administration of its powers is
acknowledged to be a model for his successors. If we think of
glory in the field, of wisdom in the cabinet, of the purest patri-
otisin, of the highest integrity, public and private, of morals with-
out a stain, of religious feelings without intolerance and without
extravagance, the august" figure of Washington presents itself as
the personation of all these ideas.

counterfist

EI

undable

1. I

HAVE endeavored

genius is a secondary

that the intrinsic value of

consideration, compared to the use to which

it is applied; that genius ought to be estimated chiefly by the

EI

character of the subject upon which it is employed, or of the
cause which it advocates; that it should be considered, in fact,
as a mere instrument, a weapon, a sword which may be used
in a good cause, or in a bad one; may be
ched by a patriot,
or a highwayman; may give protection to the dearest interests
of society, or may threaten those interests with the irruption of
pride, and profligacy, and folly,-of all
vices which compose

the curse and degradation of our species. fences.

132

2. I am the more disposed to dwell a little upon this subject, because I am persuaded that it is not sufficiently attended to," -nay, that in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred it is not attended to at all;140-that works of imagination are perused for the sake of the wit which they display; which wit not only reconciles us to, but endears to us, opinions, and feelings, and habits, at war with wisdom and morality, -to say nothing of religion; in short, that we admire the polish, the temper, and shape of the sword, and the dexterity with which it is wielded, though it is the property of a lunatic, or of a bravo; though it is flourandished in the face of wisdom and virtue; and, at every

artful

wheel, threatens to inflict a wound that will disfigure some
feature, or lop some member; or, with masterly adroitness, aims
a death-thrust at the hear
heart!

3. I would deprive genius of the worship that is paid to it for its own sake. Instead of allowing it to dictate to the world, I would have the world dictate to it, dictate to it so far as the vital interests of society are affected. I know it is the opinion of many that the moral of mere poëtry is of little avail; that we are charmed by its melody and wit, and uninjured by its afety and profaneness; and hence many

sting.

scoute has been

allowed in poetry, which would have been deprecated, ufused rejected, had it appeared in prose; as if vice and folly were less pernicious for being introduced to us with an elegant and insinuating address; or as if the graceful folds and polished scales of a serpent were an an antidole against the venom of its productive fruitful 4. There is not a more prolific, of human error than that railing at the world which obtrudes itself so frequently upon our attention in the perusing of Lord Byron's poems, that sickness of disgust which begins its indecent heavings whensoever the idea of the species forces itself upon him. The species is not perfect; but it retains serves too many evidences of the modelling of the Hand that fashioned it, is too near to the hovering providence of its disre garded but still cherishing Author, to excuse, far less to call for,

the of the laked

pre

freaking

FIRST-CLASS STANDARD READER.

abandomn

149

reproaches or justify, desertion, or disclaiming, or revilings upon the part of any one of its members. sorrowful

5. I know more pitiable object than the man who standing upon the eminence of his own self-importance, looks around upon the species with an eye that never throws a beam of satisfaction on the prospect, but visits with a scowl whatsoever it lights upon. The world is not that reprobate world, that it should be cut off from the visitation of charity; that it should be represented as having no alternative but to inflict or bear. Life is not one continued scene of wrestling with our fellows. Mankind are not forever grappling one another by the throat. There is such a thing as the grasp of friendship, as the outstretched hand of benevolence, as an interchange of good offices, as a mingling, a crowding, a straining together for the relief or the benefit of our species. impresses

LXIII.

Wednesday

CREATION.

1. THE spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal146 sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.

The unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty Hand.

2. Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

3. What, though in solemn silence ali
Move round this dark terrestria ball?

1. THE planet on which we live is twenty-five thousand miles in circum'ference, and its surface is diversified and adorned with oceans, continents, and islands, with mountains, valleys, forests, and rivers; and over all is stretched the glorious cănopy of the heavens, forever lovely with the golden light of the stars. The distance of the earth from the sun is, in round numbers, one hundred millions of miles; which is, of course, the radius or semi-diameter of its orbit.EI

2. This orbit, therefore, reaches through a circuit12 of six hundred millions of miles, along which the earth passes at the rate of seventy thousand miles an hour. And it should be remembered that this earth of ours, instead of being something con'trary to the visible heavens, is a portion of them; so that we are as truly in the heavens where we are, as we could be in any other point of space.

3. We are at this moment more than thirty-five thousand miles distant from the point in space where we were thirty minutes ago. We have actually travelled thirty-five. thousand miles, beside being carried by the diurnal motion of the earth five hundred miles further east than we were half an hour ago! It is difficult to feel the reality of this, and yet it is as certain as £gures.

4. Neptune, the outermost body of our solar family, is thirty times as far from the sun as we are, or three thousand millions of miles. From this we mount to the nearest fixed star, or the sun in our cluster next to us; and that is twenty millions of millions of miles distant from the earth.

5. And over this space it takes the light more than three years to come to us, travelling at the rate of two hundred thousand miles in a second. How overwhelming the thought! And yet this star is only the first mile-stone on the great highway that stretches along the measureless abysses of space.

6. This whole firmament of ours, including the Milky Way