very sap of their wood-fuel burning on the fire freezes at the brand's end where it drops. The mariners which were left on ship-board in the first English voyage thither, in going up only from the cabins to the hatches, had their breath so congealed by the cold, that they fell down as it were stifled."

The best commentary to the genius of a people is a visit to the scenery encompassed by which they are born and trained. For instance, the mighty gloom of the Hartz Mountains, in Germany; the robber castles towering over the Rhine; the impressive remains of antique power scattered profusely over plain, hill, and forest; the thousand commingled associations rife in every scene; the imperial Roman, the furious Goth, the graceful cavaliers of feudal times, and the thrilling conceptions of an ideal world long anterior to them all, have alike their record and impulse to the student pilgrim, wandering, or at rest, and stamp their indelible features on all the youth of the land.

The tendency of wild, broken districts, darkened by mountains and savage forests, to raise in the mind those ideas of solemn, preternatural awe, which are the stamina of the most vigorous eloquence, and the adornment of the best poetry, has been noticed from the earliest ages. "Where is a lofty, and deeply-shaded grove," writes Seneca in one of his epistles, "filled with venerable trees, whose interlacing boughs shut out the face of heaven, the grandeur of the wood, the silence of the place, the shade so dense and uniform, infuse into the breast the notion of a divinity;" and thus the ancients, struck with the living magnificence of nature, which they could not

understand, peopled each grove, fountain, or grotto, with some local genius, or god. We shall refer more fully to this point, when we come to speak of the preparatory discipline which fitted Mr. Webster for effective public life. At present we only glance at the circumstances attending his birth which were calculated nobly to imbue his character and develop its worth. He arose where the two great elements of the universe, beauty and sublimity, are most palpably revealed in the Switzerland of America. It was fitting that our greatest statesman should there meet his first struggles, and learn his first lore in the home of virtuous industry, surrounded by scenery so grand. God made the human soul illustrious, and designed it for exalted pursuits and a glorious destiny. To expand our finite faculties, and afford them a culture both profound and elevating, Nature is spread around us, with all its stupendous proportions, and Divine Revelation speaks to us of an eternal augmentation of knowledge hereafter, for weal or woe. Above, beneath, and around us, open the avenues of infinite progression, through which we must forever advance without pause, and expand in capacity without limit. Here, on this dim arena of earth, an immortal essence throbs at our heart in harmony with the infinite and eternal. The day-star of thought arises on the soul, and, with our first rational exercise, begins an existence which may experience many vicissitudes, may pass through many transitions, but can never terminate. The soul, vivified with power to think, will outlive the universe which feeds its thought, and will be still practising its juvenile excursions at the mere outset of its opening career,

while suns and systems, shorn of their glories, shall sink, in shattered ruins, to the caverns of eternal oblivion. But the soul of man,

"Vital in every part,

Cannot, but by annihilation, die."

Its two great faculties, correspondent to the two great natural elements mentioned above-the capacity to perceive the beautiful, and feel the sublime-are at once the products and proofs of our immortality. They indicate endowments which it is bliss to improve, and a destiny which it will be fearful indeed to neglect.

Dr. Clarke thought that the lofty genius of Alexander was nourished by the majestic presence of Mount Olympus, under the shadow of which he may be said to have been born and bred. If grand natural scenery tends permanently to affect the character of those cradled on its bosom, we need not wonder that New Hampshire is the nursery of patriotism the most firm, and eloquence the most sublime. Elastic as the air they breathe, free and joyous as the torrents that dash through their rural possessions, strong as the granite hills from the scanty soil of which they wring a hardy livelihood, her enterprising sons, noble and high-minded by natural endowment, are like the glorious regions of rugged adventure they love to occupy. This is an univeral rule. The Foulahs dwelling on the high Alps of Africa, are as superior to the tribes living beneath, as the natives of Cashmere are above the Hindoos, or as the Tyrolese are nobler than the Arab race. The character of individuals and of nations is in a great mea

sure influenced by their local position, circumstances of climate and education, popular traditions, and the scenery in the midst of which they arise. Popular manners and mental characteristics harmonize with the external objects with which they are surrounded. The transition from the monotonous plains of Lombardy to the bold precipices of Switzerland is, in physical nature, exactly like that, in moral character, from the crouching and squalid appearance of the brutalized peasant, to the independent air and indomitable energy of the free-born and intelligent mountaineer. The athletic form and fearless eye of the latter bespeak the freedom he has won to perpetuate and enjoy, the invigorating elements he buffets in hardy toil, and the daring aspirations he is fearless and fervid to indulge.

We proceed, secondly, to trace the youthful discipline which prepared Mr. Webster for the functions of public life. In the wild and uncultivated region where he was born, and in that age of savage warfare, it cannot be supposed that many facilities existed for procuring a refined education. But, ever since the first free school was established on the wilderness-covered peninsula of Boston, in 1636, New England schoolmasters have everywhere kept pace with the woodman in pioneering the progress of civilized life. Fortunately, the school found Mr. Webster in the wilderness, elicited his intellectual powers, and gave direction to his splendid career. Had it not been for the wise policy of our fathers, in opening free instruction to all classes on their domain, this master-mind of New England would probably have lain dormant and unknown to the present hour. This

fact he seems himself ever to have felt, as we may infer from the remarks which, in the maturity of his greatness, he made in the Convention of Massachusetts, when, in reference to popular education, he said :—

"In this particular, we may be allowed to claim a merit of a very high and peculiar character. This commonwealth, with other of the New England States, early adopted, and has constantly maintained, the principle, that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of government, to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation, in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he, himself, have, or have not children to be benefitted by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue, and of knowledge, in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well-prin

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