ing the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to her choice; they were supported by her constancy; and, with all their abilities, they were never able to acquire any undue 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 mind was still superior; and the combat which her victory visibly cost her serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments. The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prějudices 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 also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater lenity 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. 3. HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. - Burke. 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 manuscripts;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. It is impossible to refuse to Milton the honor due to a life of the sincerest piety and the most dignified virtue. lived under a more abiding sense of responsibility. No man ever 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 a 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. 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 be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things;" and from this he never swerved. His life was indeed a true poem; or it might be compared to an anthem on his own favorite organ-high-toned, solemn, and majestic. 5. WASHINGTON.- Webster. The character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light. It is associated and blended with all our reflections on those things which are near and dear to us If we think of the independence of our country, we think of him whose efforts were so prominent in 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 patriotism, of the highest integrity, public and private, of morals without a stain, of religious feelings without intolerance and without extravagance, the august78 figure of Washington presents itself as the personation of all these ideas. ΕΙ 1. I HAVE endeavored to show that the intrinsic value of genius is a secondary consideration, compared to the use to which it is applied; that genius ought to be estimated chiefly by the 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 wielded 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 the vices which compose the curse and degradation of our species. 2. I am the more disposed to dwell a little upon this subject, because I am persuaded that it is not sufficiently attended to,182 -- 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 brandished in the face of wisdom and virtue; and, at every wheel,103 threatens to inflict a wound that will disfigure some feature, or lop some member; or, with masterly adroitness, aims a death-thrust at the 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 levity and profaneness; and hence many a thing has been allowed in poetry, which would have been scouted, deprecated, 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 antidote against the venom of its sting. 4. There is not a more prolific source 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 too much of the image of its Maker, preserves too many evidences of the modelling of the Hand that fashioned it, is too near to the hovering providence of its disregarded but still cherishing Author, to excuse, far less to call for, or justify, desertion, or disclaiming, or revilings upon the part of any one of its members. 5. I know no more pitiable object than the man who standing upon the pigmy 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. 6. The moral he thus inculcates is one of the most baneful tendency. The principle of self-love, -implanted in us for the best, but capable of being perverted to the worst of purposes, by a fatal abuse, too often disposes us to indulge in this sweeping depreciation of the species; a depreciation founded upon some fallacious idea of superior value in ourselves, with which imaginary excellence we conceive the world to be at war. A greater source of error cannot exist. KNOWLES. 1. THE spacious firmament on high, The unwearied sun from day to day The work of an Almighty Hand. 2. Soon as the evening shades prevail, And spread the truth from pole to pole. 3. What, though in solemn silence all 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 canopy 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-diăm ĕter of its orbit." 2. This orbit, therefore, reaches through a circuit 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 figures. 4. Nep'tune, 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-stōne on the great highway that stretches along the measureless abysses of space. 6. This whole firmament of ours, including the Milky Way |