soon presented himself at the door; but instead of standing there, as was customary, he made for a chair that was vacant next to the Chairman's seat. 'Young gentleman, (said W.,) you will stand by the door! No, sir, (said E.,) being a lame man, I always sit,' still advancing towards the vacant chair. 'Why, really, Mister E., (said W., rising from his seat,) really, Mister E., wont you have my seat?" "Thank you, sir,' said E., and sat down in the Chairman's seat, leaving him standing. By this time a stifled laugh began to run round the room, which added to the Chairman's embarrassment, as he stood before the self-complacent Freshman. But rallying a little, E., (said he,) if you don't mend your manners, you'll be a fool as long as you live.' 'What! (said E.,) a FOOL! Yes, a FOOL! What, a stultus! 'Yes, a STULTUS! (with much emphasis.) Behold the object!' 'I do, sir,' (said E.,) politely bowing to the Chairman. The company could hold in no longer. W. beat a retreat. E. made off victorious, and was never troubled by the Seniors again."

6

Verily the Freshmen of the present day have abundant reason to bless their stars and improve their exalted privileges.

J. M. H.

The Statue of Eve.

SPIRIT of Beauty! Thou at length hast found
A fitting temple-an abiding home.

When, in Eternity, God's early works
Answered his will in silent loveliness,

Then did'st thou dwell, of old ancestral years,
In azure-girdled star-light, and the blush
Of angel-haunted Eden, whose four streams
Wandered 'twixt gold and sunshine to the sea.
The traces of thy smiling linger still
In thy primeval palaces. But thou
Did'st pine in secret for a holier shrine,
Waiting for God to set his heavenly seal
Upon the brow of PERFECT WOMANHOOD.

Mother of Earth! If ever in our hearts
Hath crept the unbidden shadow of a thought,
Upbraiding thee for thine unwary deed
That broke the fountain of so many tears—
Forgive us-Oh! forgive us-while we bow
Before the charm of thy repentant pride
And lose thy frailty in thy look of love.

Mother of Earth! It is to thee we owe

The light that makes earth lovely. For from thee
Gushed the first words of woman's tenderness;

The earliest rapture of affection's smile,

And on thy lips quivered the world's first kiss.

And here art thou to-day, O gentle Eve!
In marble resurrection. Art hath spoiled
The grave of its first treasure, and thy sons
Have come to worship at their mother's knee.
Methinks if thou should'st draw another breath
From out my pulseless and obedient heart,
That thou would'st live forever-that thy locks
Would gladly tremble on thy snowy breast-
Thine eyes disclose their magic and thy lips
Unlock in benediction-that thy limbs
Would burst the fetters of imprisoned grace
And move in youthful loveliness, as when
Rustling of old the boughs of Paradise.

Yet thou shalt live forever. For thou hast
Too much of heaven to be the thrall of Death.
Yes! Thou shalt live forever. For our souls
Shall guard the image of thy beauty well,

And bear it with us to Eternity.

And thou--amid the turmoil of this earthly life--
Shalt be a daily blessing on our way-

A golden memory-a perpetual joy.

3. М. П.

TOWNSEND PRIZE ESSAY.

Public Amusements as Instruments used by Despotisms to Debase the People.

BY HENRY BILLINGS BROWN, BERKSHIRE CO., MASS.

AMONG the instinctive principles of our nature, enumerated by philosophers, is a propensity to alternate action and repose. The Creator himself made provision for it, when the fiat, dividing the light from the darkness, was proclaimed from the Eternal throne. A temporal limitation is thus assigned to the ordinance, which declares that in the sweat of his brow shall man eat his bread. Human labor, however, must be limited in intensity as well as in time. Even in the hours of action, uninterrupted and toilsome exertion prostrates the faculties of body and mind. They crave a relaxation, that shall not be repose, an occupation, that shall not be labor. This appetite, if ungratified, induces a restlessness, that suffers no assuagement,-a morbid ill-humor, that defies all sympathy. Its natural products are amusements, which therefore result necessarily from the constitution of man, and are essential to his intellectual efficiency and physical vigor. The social principle, inherent in human nature, originally drew them from the precincts of the family circle into a wider communion, adapting them to man as a constituent of society.

It is an old adage, that the manners of a country may be known from its amusements. They are, in truth, both an effect and a cause of national character. The very customs, of which they were the legitimate offspring, they intensify and perpetuate. Though always retaining to some extent, their original mould, they still keep pace with the national march in civilization, and that too, in accordance with a definite and universal law.

In their infancy, governments are weak, and demand stout hearts and brawny arms to grapple with the Chimeras that seek to throttle them. Their policy is simple, straight-forward. Everything is made subservient to perfection in the military character. All men become soldiers and all soldiers, patriots. Their swords are carried to the field, are laid by the anvil, are hung over the bedside. Girt with the righteous armor of defense, they go to their closets and their churches to invoke the "God of Battles."

Their amusements, likewise, have a higher signification than mere

diversion. They are an utterance of the universal sentiment, and are made to promote the grandest aims of legislation. Athletic games will be instituted to stimulate courage and a generous emulation, and to inure the body to the hardships of military life. Such were the sports of the stadium, the pentathlon, and the hippodrome. The games of Olympia were something more to the Grecians than simple amusements. The lessons taught them upon the banks of the Alpheus, were put in practice at Plataea, at Salamis, at Mycale.

While public amusements retain this character; while they fortify the bond of a common emotion; while they encourage a patriotic self-devotement, and a manly independence, they are among the stanchest bulwarks of national liberty. But as time wears on, governments become matured; society advances in the arts of peace; and an intellectual, dethrones a merely physical dominion. Amusements undergo an analagous change. Before, a bodily discipline: now, a mental recreation. An active participation in them is succeeded by passive enjoyment of them. The natural tendency to deterioration is developed by increased facilities for indulgence. Their influence, hitherto positively healthy, becomes at least equivocal. Bridle them by a firm system of ethics, and uphold them by a catholic policy, and they are healthy still: banish from them all moral restraint, and subject them to the surveillance of a selfish authority, and they become its sturdiest Atlas.

Despotism demands of its subjects obedience to arbitrary law. Such obedience, however, man, with a full knowledge of his capacities, will not cheerfully render to other than divine authority. Fear may wrest it from them; a callous insensibility to degradation may induce them to yield it; but it cannot be the voluntary offering of a spirited people. Accordingly, force in the executive, and ignorance in the commons, are the main pillars of absolute power. A secret police to ferret out, and to betray the arcana of the human heart, and a servile army, to stifle the spasmodic outbursts of popular frenzy, are the constituents of the former: while beneath and back of these, fighting their surer yet bloodless battles, public amusements are made to corrode every thought of discontent, every breathing for freedom, by substituting a preference for trifling pleasures, an acquiescence in servitude, symptomatic of the most hopeless ignorance. A judicious sifting must previously remove from them every enlarged view, every patriotic sentiment. Thus maimed, they are sent forth upon their ignoble mission. They satisfy, and the people are quiet they preoccupy the mind, and they are blind to their condition.

In the aid which public amusements afford to the establishment and maintenance of despotic power, we recognize a twofold action: upon the individual, and upon society.

As intelligence leads to liberal ideas, and a contempt for unlawful authority; as a spirit of inquiry leads to an examination of old theories, and a rejection of false ones; as industry leads to a knowledge of the value of property, and a vindication of its rights; so "the jealous instinct of despotism" panders to self-indulgence, in hope of crushing these, and of extinguishing all that is generous in thought, and honorable in action. It finds no agent more efficient than public amusements. True, they do not directly diminish the amount of absolute knowledge; on the contrary, they are even serviceable as illustrative and historical schools for popular instruction. They teach the capabilities of language, as an expression of universal thought. They reveal the wild throes of tumultuous passion, ebbing and flowing in the great estuary of the human heart. From the moulding crypts of the dead, they drag to light long buried customs and flaunt them in the specious finery of the stage. Virtue here meets its glad though late reward; vice its "wilds of woe." Shallow and valueless these lessons, however, when considered with reference to the real wants of an enslaved people.

But their influence does not stop here. Let amusements be injudi. ciously encouraged, and pleasure becomes a universal avocation. She demands of her votaries a slavish submission. She dampens their yearnings for nobler, purer joys. She disinclines them from the patient, mental application, requisite to comprehensive knowledge and fruitful thought. Not in schools of pleasure, are immortal minds trained to "act well their part." But let the gates of education be closed to the suppliants who are seeking admission, and man's innate thirst for knowledge, finding no gratification in its natural fountain, easily quenches itself in these gifts of a mocking benevolence. Where should be laid a ground

work deep and solid, there reigns a paltry sciolism. The arm of industry is palsied, for idleness is a legitimate and fatal consequent of popular ignorance. The stamina of a sober, earnest people is gone. Gay, capricious, superficial, their life is "a series of histrionic efforts," a comedy with a tragic catastrophe.

Not here, however, do public amusements work with deadliest effect. The general sense of duty requisite to a well governed state, is undermined. Public morality is an unrelenting foe to unrighteous authority.

* De Quincey.