different periods, the highest premiums of gov-| when even the interests of men are called into ernment. It has set astonomers at toil which requisition to work out the great problem of their only terminated in brilliant discovery. The va- existence. rious problems of navigation even now demand "Commerce, in fine, is what it has been beauthe highest labors of these men in every country, tifully entitled: The golden girdle of the globe.' and the mere tables of a nautical almanac-the It binds together all the great families of men. calculation of eclipses, occultations and paral-It teaches that they are creatures of like wants, laxes, calls into action a degree of scientific skill errors and necessities. It determines them to be which can scarcely be appreciated by the unini- component parts of a great and magnificent systiated. The mariner's compass, quadrant, or tem which God has devised, and which requires chronometer, are miracles of art as well as of the concurring movements of every part to be science. For every nation in the world com-preserved in its perfection and duration. It formerce has brought together her trophies, and laid bids them to treat like the ancient Roman, the them at the feet of science. Without leaving foreigner cast upon their shores, as a barbarian his closet the student of nature may arrive at deserving of death, or to confiscate his shipwreckprofound results in the investigation of animals, ed effects, but urges rather the doctrine of huplants, shells, and minerals, scattered over the manity and justice. Even the laws which reguwhole globe-above the earth and under the late it are based upon the immutable principles earth, and down to the depths of the sea. Every of right, and bind upon the consciences of men art and science acknowledges its large indebted- from their very nature. As Mansfield, the most ness to the hand of commerce for the influence celebrated commercial lawyer of his age, said of it is enabled to wield over nature in extending them, quoting the splendid language of Cicero: the empire and dominion of man. 'Nec erit alia lex Roma, alia Athenis; alia nunc, "Commerce is the parent of civilization. We alia posthac; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore are acquainted with but one agency which ex-una lex et sempeterna, et immortalis continebat :'cels it in perpetuating peace and good will among men, and elevating national character, and that agency is Christianity. But even the heralds of the cross, with all their noble and inspiring them, have not penetrated further into the depths of "I shall not, then, be regarded as overrating savage wilderness or among the fiercest islands the importance of the merchant classes. In Engof the ocean, have not crossed mountains and land, the degree of Thane was formerly conferred deserts more desolate and terrific, have not plun- upon the successful prosecutor of three voyages. ged more fearlessly in the midst of horrid idola-A Prime Minister of France, and several Grand try, cannibalism, and semi-demonism, than have Dukes of Tuscany, are examples,' says Mr. these men of bales and merchandises in their Beawes, which might countenance any one research after trade. They have gone hand in maining in trade.' Wise and great traders,' says hand with the missionary, where they have not Mr. Postlewhait, have arrived at the dignity of acted as his pioneer. It was thus in the early Lord Chancellors of England, have been created history of America. Marquette and Allouez, peers of the realm, bannerets, and privy councilfathers in the Roman church, were even distan-lors,' and he enumerates a long line of such, at ced by the adventurous La Salle in the first visits the head of which stands Michael de la Pole. It which were made by civilized men to the howl- is unnecessary for us to refer to any of the later ing wilderness westward of the Lakes. It is thus or more numerous instances, or to those eminent with the hunters and trappers of Oregon and California, who, as far upward as the Russian limit and south to Mexico, prosecute trade with the savage, as yet ignorant of his soul and of his Maker. It is most strikingly thus in the case of the Sandwich Islands. Commerce, acting as the adjunct or handmaiden of Christianity amongst the savages there, has transformed them into men and into citizens. We see a trophy won to eivilization-a people added to the Christian na they are not one law at Rome and another at Athens; they did not fluctuate from extreme to extreme; but amongst all men, and in all times, the laws of commerce are one and immutable. tions of the earth. 6 6 men who have, in all the States of this Union, from the commercial ranks, done so much to elevate our national character and prosperity. The splendor, the power, the diguity, being thus raised by trade, it must be unaccountable folly and infatuation to lessen that one article in our estimation, which is the only foundation whence we all, take us as a nation, are raised, and by which we are enriched and maintained.' How important, then, that the mercantile classes should be liberally educated for their pursuits, and in a country like ours, that the citizens of every pursuit be possessed, at least, of the general and leading principles of our commercial operations, which are among the most important of the age." "Let us take the extremest limit of the ocean, the stormiest islet of the sea, struggling against a thousand billows, and what do we find? The sailor and the trader have been there; and the return of the white wings' is hailed by anxious multitudes, who bring out their treasures, to be bartered for the veriest trifles of civilization. We come now to consider the speech of Mr. From the intercourse which arises, new wants Everett, the caption of which we have already are stimulated in their bosoms. They begin to given. But before drawing upon his present think with the new objects which occasion thought. effort for brilliant gems of thought (as we shall Their views and ideas are naturally expanded to do presently) let us say a word of the author in a a wider compass, and they are insensibly mould ed in the type of those who have excited their general way. highest admiration and wonder. Mysterious, It has been the province of Mr. Everett bebeneficent and wise are the ways of Providence, yond any other American writer, to dignify the House of Representatives, of the friends of the Colleges, in support of the memorial. President Hopkins appeared on behalf of Williams College, President Hitchcock on behalf of Amherst College, and President Sparks and Mr. Everett on behalf of Harvard College, with other gentlemen, officers or friends of the institutions respectively. Mr. Everett addressed the Committee in support of the memorial and made an eloquent exposition of the benefits of the collegiate system. His position are not unlike those of Mr. Holmes, but from the nature of the circumstances are more directly enforced. We are gratified to learn that the efforts of the friends of the colleges have been so far crowned with success that the Joint Committee have reported a bill providing for the accumulation of a fund of $750,000, two thirds to be appropriated to the colleges and the other $250,000 for Normal Schools and other educational purposes. We cannot resist copying the following beautiful passage with reference to self-education. Mr. E. says: and illustrate the business of making speeches. [scribed by law, another fund of one half a milA volume of orations published by him thir- lion should be allowed to accumulate for the teen years ago would sufficiently establish his benefit of the Colleges. The afternoon of Febfame as a orator and a rhetorician, had he pro-ruary 7th was appointed by the Joint Committee duced nothing since; but it so happens that du-on Education for a public hearing, in the Hall of ring these thirteen years Mr. Everett has been sending forth the most felicitous oratorical efforts of his life. A distinguishing excellence of Mr. Everett is found in the adaptation of his style to the theme and the occasion; it is severe, or ornate, but never tame or swoln, as the moment demands. Forming himself upon the established models of eloquence of all ages, he has learned from the great Roman master that there is a style for every kind of speaking.* Accordingly he never disappoints the public expectation. It is indeed true that his writings are artificial, but they are so in like manner with the finest productions of the brush and the chisel. Words are but the elements of style and he alone can acquire a perfect command of them who laboriously and patiently studies their arrangement and meaning. The mechanical finish of Powers seems to belong to Mr. Everett and when a composition has received the last touch of his pen, you can no more improve it by alteration or emendation than you can improve the Greek Slave by cutting down her features. The attempt would be equally to mar, in the one case as in the other. Mr. Everett has possessed himself of the spell and Bowditch; and heaven forbid that in the "We hear of untaught men, Sir, of Franklin which unlocks all the hidden treasures of lan- city where one was born, and the other died, their guage, he selects always the precise word for the names shonld ever be pronounced but with ventransmission of his thought, and no synonyme eration. But in the first place to argue from the can be found for it by the most dexterous critic. case of such men as Franklin and Bowditch to With these qualifications for high attainments in the case of the generality of minds, would be authorship, it has exerted surprise and regret that comber in order that when he grows up he might like putting a roguish boy apprentice to a woolMr. Everett has never produced a great work. write another Hamlet. But what is a self-taught It is possible that at this very time he is engaged man, and what does he do? He is not an unupon such a performance. We should consider taught man; nor does he go blazing through life, it a most valuable acquisition to English litera- like a locomotive engine in a dark night, by the ture. But when we regard the many elegant light of his own intuition. Sir, a self-taught specimens of oratorical skill that Mr. Everett has written of late years, and when we consider the large audiences that have been delighted and instructed by him from time to time, we are not disposed to wish that his studious moments had been otherwise, employed. who, under discouragements and in the face of man is a man of a strong mind and stronger will obstacles, acquires the rudiments of learning; and when he has done so carries on and com pletes his education, by placing his understanding in contact with the cultivated intellect of other regions and other times. Franklin is cer man. He was a great original interpreter of nature. tainly a most favorable specimen of a self taught The History of Science has nothing more subAt an early period of the late session of the lime than the Courage, with which he sent his Massachusetts Legislature a memorial was pre- armed kite into the thunder-cloud, and drew the sented praying that, when the school fund had electric spark with his finger from the key at the reached the limit of one million of dollars pre-of books, a studious man,—a friend of academ at the end of the cord. But Franklin was a man This history of the present speech is as follows: * Nam et causæ capitis alium quendam verborum sonum requirunt, alium rerum privatarum atque parvarum; et aliud dicendi genus deliberationes, aliud laudationes, aliud judicia, aliud sermones, aliud consolatio, aliud objurgatio, aliud disputatio, aliud historia desiderat. Cicero de Oratore. ical training. Listen to what he says about the men, spoke two of the best languages that ever were, | his own name announced as Master of Arts; the most expressive, copious, beautiful, and that but it was not until congratulated by a townsthe finest writings, the most correct compositions, man and friend that he became satisfied that his the most expressive productions of human wit senses had not deceived him. He always spoke and wisdom, are in those languages which have of this as one of the proudest days of his life; endured for ages, and will endure while there and amid all the subsequent proofs which he are men; that no translation can do them jus- received of the respect and esteem of his fellow tice, or give the pleasure found in reading the citizens, and the distinctions conferred upon him originals: that those languages contain all sci- from foreign countries, he recurred to this with ence; that one of them has become almost uni- the greatest pleasure. It is, indeed, made the versal, being the language of learned men in all subject of express mention in his will.' countries; and that to understand them is a dis- "Dr. Bowditch sent three sons to the Univertinguishing ornament; they may be thereby sity; and as a member of the Corporation, demade desirous of learning those languages, and voted the twelve last years of his life to the mantheir industry sharpened in the acquisition of agement of its affairs, giving them all the force them. All intended for divinity should be taught of his transcendent talents; and I think I may the Latin and Greek; for physic, the Latin, add, without doing injustice to any other resGreek and French; for law, the Latin and pected name, rendering to the institution services French; merchants, the French, German and unequalled by those of any of his associates. Spanish; and, though all should not be com- Sir, if it were possible to leave the question bepelled to learn Latin, Greek, or the modern for- fore you to the arbitrament of Dr. Bowditch, our eign languages, yet none that have an ardent de- cause would be gained." sire to learn them should be refused; their English, Arithmetic and other studies absolutely necessary, being at the same time not neglected.' "Such is the estimate of college education formed by the self-taught Franklin, the poor boy who was born in Milk street, and whose parents fill an humble grave in yonder cemetery. In enforcing the adoption of a large and enlightened policy of public instruction, Mr. Everett alludes to the California Gold-fever, the last epidemic of the day. We quote the passage, which happens to be the conclusion of the speech. "Dr. Bowditch was perhaps more than Franklin, a self-taught man. So far is his example "We hear much at present of veins of gold from proving the inutility of academic learning, which are brought to light in almost every latitude that his first youthful struggle was made to ac- of either hemisphere; in fact, we hear of nothing quire the Latin language; and when we think else. But I care not what mines may be openof the scientific attainments of his after life, it ed in the North or in the South, in the mountains does make one who has had some opportunity of of Siberia or the Sierras of California; whereeducation in early life, hang his head in shame, soever the fountains of the golden tide may gush to see the difficulties encountered by this great forth, the streams will flow to the regions where man in the outset the simplest Latin words educated intellect has woven the boundless nettamen and rursus, with their signification in Eng- work of the useful and ornamental arts. Yes, lish being written in the margin of the books sir, if Massachusetts remains true to the policy first perused by him, in aid of a memory, which which has hitherto in the main governed her afterwards embraced the whole circle of the math- legislation, and is not now, I trust, to be departed ematical sciences in its iron grasp. And what was from, a generous wave of the golden tide will the first use made by Dr. Bowditch of the Latin reach her distant shores. Let others tongue? to read the Principia of Sir Isaac Newton:-a man, if ever there was one among men not technically academic, who was nurtured in academic discipline:-a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; a professor of Mathematics; a man who passed fifteen years of his life in the eloisters of a College, and solved the problem of the universe from that turret over Trinity gate- yes, for me, may poor old rocky, sandy Masway, beneath which you, sir, (Mr. Henry Herbert, sachusetts exclaim, land as she is of the School, a member of the University of Cambridge in Eng- the Academy, and the College;-land of the land,) have passed so often with emotions, I doubt press, the lecture-room and the Church, Tempt icy seas where scarce the waters roll, For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow, The coral redden, and the ruby glow, not, of veneration toward the great mind which has given immortality to the spot. This was the kindred intellect with which the mind of Bowditch sought its first communion. In the beautiful memoir of his father, which the son of Dr. Bowditch has presented to us, we read the following interesting anecdote: From our venera- "It matters not if every pebble in the bed of ble University at Cambridge he received the the Sacramento were a diamond as big and as highest encouragement to pursue the career upon precious as the mysterious Ko-hi-noor, which which he had entered. In July, 1802, when his we read of in the last accounts from India, on ship, the Astrea, was windbound in Boston, he whose possession the fate of empire is believed, went to hear the performances at the annual in those benighted regions, to depend. It matcommencement of the College; and among the ters not if this new Pactolus flow through a region honorary degrees conferred, he thought he heard which stretches for furlongs-a wide tract of solid gold. The jewels and the ingots will find their golden bowl is broken at the fountain, we may way to the great centres of civilization, where well turn from the halls of academic learning cultivated mind gives birth to the arts, and free-and the marts of commercial industry to receive dom renders property secure. The region itself to which these fabulous treasures are attracting a new admonition of the fragility of our being. the countless hosts of thrift, cupidity and adven- After depicting in sombre colors and with deep ture will derive, I fear, the smallest part of the feeling the last moments of existence under difbenefit. Could they be peopled entirely with ferent circumstances, the eloquent lecturer says, the emigrants like the best of those who have taken their departure from among us, and who carry with them an outfit of New England principles and habits, it would be well; but much I linger on, but which I feel it is not my province fear the gold region will, for a long time, be a to describe. I speak still of Death—not on the scene of anarchy and confusion, of violence and bloodshed, of bewildering gains and maddening losses, of any thing but social happiness and well regulated civil liberty. "There is another scene which I would fais field-not at the stake; I speak of that death which steals upon the frame worn down with sickness and decay; no spirit-stirring scenes are around it to cheer it on; no crowd of spectators "If we will not be taught by any thing else, to applaud its heroism; debility and pain are its let us learn of history. It was not Mexico and internal and surrounding circumstances; but still Peru. nor (what it imports us more to bear in you can see, in the dimmed eye, the flashes of mind) Portugal, nor Spain, which reaped the sil-an eternal light; you may hear, in the faint voice, ver and golden harvest of the sixteenth and sev- the accents of an eternal love! You may view enteenth centuries. It was the industrious, en- the glorious hope of immortality rising up upon lightened, cultivated States of the north and angels' wings; and the last word, the last look, west of Europe. It was little Holland,-scarcely the last breath, tell not of doubt-not of fear, but one fifth as large as New England,-hardly able of unshaken courage, of deathless trust. It is to keep her head above the waters of the super- the death bed of the christian; the tearing asunincumbent ocean, but with five Universities dot-der of the soul, washed in the blood of its Sating her limited surface; it was England, with viour, from the body of sin and suffering that her foundation Schools, her indomitable public encompasses it. Oh, well might the inspired opinion, her representative system, her twin Uni- penman break forth in view of such a scene and versities; it was to these free and enlightened such an end, with the dauntless exclamation, countries that the gold and silver flowed; not: Oh death, where is thy sting! Oh grave, where merely adding to the material wealth of the com- is thy victory!' munity, but quickening the energy of the industri- "And now, my bearers, am I wrong in assert. ous classes, breaking down the remains of feudal-ing, that there is Poetry in Death? Surely you ism, furnishing the sinews of war to the champions will not say so, in view of the pictures that I of protestant liberty, and thus cheering them on to have presented to you, albeit they are sketched the great struggle, to whose successful issue it is by a feeble hand. Why, what is Poetry? Ask owing, in its remote effects, under Providence, the mere superficial reader and observer, and he that you, Sir, sit in safety beneath the canopy the learned, the acute, keen watcher of human will tell you that it is thoughts in rhyme; ask that overhangs this hall. "What the love of liberty, the care of educa-affairs and of nature, and he will tell you that it tion, and a large and enlightened regard for in- consists in the beautiful, wherever that may be tellectual and moral interests, did for the parent found; whatever touches the heart, whatever state, they will do for us. They will give us purifies the mind, whatever ennobles the intel temporal prosperity; and with it what is infin- lect. The sweet look of a blooming maiden, is itely better; not only a name and a praise with contemporary nations who form with us the great procession of humanity, but a name and a praise among enlightened men and enlightened states to the end of time." Poetry; the chivalrous deed, is Poetry; the open hand; the self-sacrificing action; the consistent life; all these are Poetry; lines written by the sweet pencils of nature or of grace; and if I am right here, is not a holy, a beautiful, a thrilling death, Poetry? Ah yes, it is the most sublime; no human pen can write such noble epic-DO Our quotations have been so numerous and so human tongue can read such glorious verse. extended that only a short space is left us for We are too apt to couple it with pain and suf honorable mention of the lecture of Judge Charl-fering; we are too much induced to think of it ton. This gentleman is favorably known for an as associated with the grave and with corruption educated taste in letters and a very pleasing gift We must take our eyes off this dark picture and of versification. Regarding him as an ornament that life, with all its afflictions, all its darkness, is look forward and upward; we must never forget to the South, we are gratified to recognise in his nevertheless a great blessing; but we must, at recent publication, a pure and chaste style of the same time, not cease to remember, that its prose composition. The subject is one which greatest blessing consists in its being a preparavery fitly brings us to a conclusion,-after what tion for another and an immortal state, in comwe have read of busy traffic and toilsome study,-parison with which, it is but darkness; and he THE POETRY OF DEATH. The solemn change tence, and feels that he has endeavored with hu who has duly improved the advantages of exisis what scholar and artisan must alike undergo, mility and love to perform its duties to bis Maker and when the silver chord is loosed and the and his neighbor, may break forth, as it sees its 1 end approaching, in the joyful exclamation of the apostle the night is far spent,—the day is at hand,' the bright and beautiful morning of eternity! If we should regard it as an evil, still it is wisdom's part to look steadily upon it, for all evils may be mitigated by foresight and preparation. It is true that we may not avert this; it is the certain, the inevitable doom of all; we may each apply to ourselves the simple lines of the poet 'To think of Summer yet to come, To think a weed is yet to bloom, And we may take an enlarged view of it, we may see the mighty hand of our Maker brushing away from the face of the earth an entire generation, and then, calling out to the succeeding race, Come again, ye children of men;' and so shall wave after wave of mankind roll on, and roll away, until its last heave is lost in the bosom of Eternity! EUREKA. BY MARY G. WELLS. "I have found it!" quoth the child In the evening's gentle hush "I have found it" breathes the maiden, Love, life's sweetest bliss is mine: The flush of triumph on his brow, I have found it!" cries the bard, "I have found it!" cries the king, And the sceptre to his heart, "I have found it!" says the sage, And uplifts his care-dim eyes VOL. XV-37 "I have found it!" with a sigh Cries the weary of the world, On the lap of mother earth,- "I have found it!" he can say Disclosing heaven to his view, THE NEW PYTHAGOREAN. CHAPTER FOURTH.-DELOS. If Athens was, as the great bard called it, the eye of Greece, the little island of Delos may, with quite as much justness of metaphor, be called the heart of Greece. Not that its soil was the richest of Greece, or its people the most warlike, its fortresses the most impregnable, or its citadel the most defensible. But that island, “longe clarissima, cycladum media, templo Apollinis et mercatu celebrata," was the organ, as it were, of some of the strangest social feelings of the Athenian confederacy with which it was joined. It was their treasury, their Congressional city, the Bethlehem of their purest deities, the Mecca of their pilgrimages; the spot which they purified when their fortunes were, and their deities seemed, adverse; the altar to which they sent their most sacred and mysterious offerings by their fairest and noblest messengers; the port from which the sacred bark must return before even such enemies as Melitus and Lycon and Anytus would compel the hemlock to the lips even of so dangerous a prisoner as Socrates; the sacred isle which Cicero tells us, was safe without walls-sine muro nihil timebat-when the pirates were swarming in the Greek and Italian seas, which Polycrates of Samos spared when he was irresistible on the ocean, and which even the Persians themselves dared not violate in a war which laid Athens in ruins. That island we would see, in whatever sense the vision may be won. Yet a vision of Delos as it lies in the past is the only one which is worth having. As the island now is, there is no voice of glory heard in it save the voice of the memory of far remote centuries. Like Milton's Eden after the deluge, it is but "the haunt of seals and orcs, and seamew's clang." The whole island has |