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creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious phrenzy, may there find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject for human congratulation! Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture! At the end of the very next century, if she proceed as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit ! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when, in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have interred all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! I have not the least doubt that when our temples and our trophies shall have mouldered into dust-when the glories of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements only live in song; philosophy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington.

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Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared; how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature was endeavouring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt,

there were; splendid exemplifications of some single qualification: Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely chef d'œuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood: a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. - Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated an hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created!

"How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page,
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage;
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!"

Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be ac cused of partiality in his estimate of America.Happy, proud America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!

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ON EDUCATION.

Education is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave; at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament; it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave! a reasoning savage, vacillating between the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, and the degradation of passions participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendancy shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this wondrous world of his residence?

A mighty maze, and all without a plan;

a dark, and desolate, and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament, or order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education. Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before the hesitating Constantine, if man follow but its precepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission.

SUBJECTS DESCRIPTIVE AND
MISCELLANEOUS.

THE SELF INFLICTING TORMENTS OF THE

GAMESTER.

No man who has not felt, can possibly image to himself the tortures of a gamester. Of a gamester ⚫ like me, who played for the improvement of his fortune, who played with the recollection of a wife and children, dearer to him than the blood that bubbled through the arteries of his heart; who might be said like the savages of ancient Germany, to make these relations the stake for which he threw; who saw all his own happiness and all theirs, through the long vista of life, depending on the turn of a card ! All bodily racks and torments are nothing compared with certain states of the human mind. The gamester would be the most pitiable, if he were not the most despicable, creature that exists. Arrange ten bits of painted paper in a certain order, and he is ready to go wild with the extravagance of his joy. He is only restrained by some remains of shame from dancing about the room, and displaying the vileness of his spirit by every sort of freak and absurdity. At another time, when his hopes have been gradually worked up into a paroxysm, an unexpected turn arrives, and he is made the most miserable of men. Never shall I cease to recollect the

sensation which I have repeatedly felt, in the instantaneous sinking of the spirits, the conscious fire that spread over my visage, the anger in my eye, the burning dryness of my throat, the sentiment that in a moment was ready to overwhelm with curses the cards, the stake, my own existence, and all mankind. How every malignant and insufferable passion seemed to rush upon my soul! What nights of dreadful solitude and despair did I repeatedly pass during the progress of my ruin! It was the night of the soul! My mind was wrapped in a gloom that could not be pierced! My heart was oppressed with a weight that no power appeared equal to remove! My eyelids seemed to press downward with an invincible burthen! My eyeballs were ready to start and crack their sockets! I lay motionless, the victim of ineffable horror!

A description of the field of battle, where Varus, the Roman General, and his army, had been destroyed by Armineus. Also of the tribute of respect paid by Germanicus and his legions to the scattered and unburied bones of their slaughtered countrymer.

Touched by this affecting circumstance, Germanicus resolved to pay the last human office to the relics of that unfortunate commander, and his slaughtered soldiers. The same tender sentiment diffused itself throughout the army. Some felt the touch of nature for their relations, others for their friends, and all lamented the disasters of war, and the wretched lot of human kind. The army marched through a gloomy solitude; the place presented an awful spectacle, and the memory of a tragical event encreased the horror of the scene. The first camp of Varus appeared in view, the extent of the ground, and the three different enclosures for the eagles, still

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