CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 1 (continued 2)

Baldazzar. Let us descend!—'tis time. Politian, give These fancies to the wind. Remember, pray, Your bearing lately savored much of rudeness Unto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember!

Politian. Remember? I do. Lead on! I do remember. (going.) Let us descend. Baldazzar! Oh I would give, Freely would give the broad lands of my earldom To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice, To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear Once more that silent tongue.

Baldazzar. Let me beg you, sir, Descend with me—the Duke may be offended. Let us go down I pray you.

Voice (loudly.) Say nay!—say nay!

Politian (aside.) 'Tis strange!—'tis very strange—methought the voice Chimed in with my desires and bade me stay! (approaching the window.) Sweet voice! I heed thee, and will surely stay. Now be this Fancy, by Heaven, or be it Fate, Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, make Apology unto the Duke for me, I go not down to-night.

Baldazzar. Your lordship's pleasure Shall be attended to. Good night, Politian.

Politian. Good night, my friend, good night.

III.

The Gardens of a Palace—Moonlight. Lalage and Politian.

Lalage. And dost thou speak of love To me, Politian?—dost thou speak of love To Lalage?—ah wo—ah wo is me! This mockery is most cruel—most cruel indeed!

Politian. Weep not! oh, weep not thus—thy bitter tears Will madden me. Oh weep not, Lalage— Be comforted. I know—I know it all, And still I speak of love. Look at me, brightest, And beautiful Lalage, and listen to me! Thou askest me if I could speak of love, Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen. Thou askest me that—and thus I answer thee— Thus on my bended knee I answer thee. (kneeling.) Sweet Lalage, I love thee—love thee—love thee; Thro' good and ill—thro' weal and wo I love thee. Not mother, with her first born on her knee, Thrills with intenser love than I for thee. Not on God's altar, in any time or clime, Burned there a holier fire than burneth now Within my spirit for thee. And do I love? (arising.) Even for thy woes I love thee—even for thy woes— Thy beauty and thy woes.

Lalage. Alas, proud Earl, Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me! How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens Pure and reproachless of thy princely line, Could the dishonored Lalage abide? Thy wife, and with a tainted memory— My seared and blighted name, how would it tally With the ancestral honors of thy house, And with thy glory?

Politian. Speak not—speak not of glory! I hate—I loathe the name; I do abhor The unsatisfactory and ideal thing. Art thou not Lalage and I Politian? Do I not love—art thou not beautiful— What need we more? Ha! glory!—now speak not of it! By all I hold most sacred and most solemn— By all my wishes now—my fears hereafter— By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven— There is no deed I would more glory in, Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory And trample it under foot. What matters it— What matters it, my fairest, and my best, That we go down unhonored and forgotten Into the dust—so we descend together. Descend together—and then—and then perchance——

Lalage. Why dost thou pause, Politian?

Politian. And then perchance Arise together, Lalage, and roam The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest, And still——

Lalage. Why dost thou pause, Politian?

Politian. And still together—together.

Lalage. Now Earl of Leicester! Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts I feel thou lovest me truly.

Politian. Oh, Lalage!? (throwing himself upon his knee.) And lovest thou me?

Lalage. Hist!—hush! within the gloom Of yonder trees methought a figure past— A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless— Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.? (walks across and returns.) I was mistaken—'twas but a giant bough Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian!

Politian. My Lalage—my love! why art thou moved? Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience' self, Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it, Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night wind Is chilly—and these melancholy boughs Throw over all things a gloom.

Lalage. Politian! Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land With which all tongues are busy—a land new found— Miraculously found by one of Genoa— A thousand leagues within the golden west; A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine, And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests, And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds Of Heaven untrammelled flow—which air to breathe Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter In days that are to come?

Politian. O, wilt thou—wilt thou Fly to that Paradise—my Lalage, wilt thou Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten, And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all. And life shall then be mine, for I will live For thee, and in thine eyes—and thou shalt be No more a mourner—but the radiant Joys Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee, And worship thee, and call thee my beloved, My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife, My all;—oh, wilt thou—wilt thou, Lalage, Fly thither with me?

Lalage. A deed is to be done— Castiglione lives!

Politian. And he shall die! (exit.)

Lalage (after a pause.) And—he—shall—die!——alas! Castiglione die? Who spoke the words? Where am I?—what was it he said?—Politian! Thou art not gone—thou art not gone, Politian! I feel thou art not gone—yet dare not look, Lest I behold thee not; thou couldst not go With those words upon thy lips—O, speak to me! And let me hear thy voice—one word—one word, To say thou art not gone,—one little sentence, To say how thou dost scorn—how thou dost hate My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou art not gone— O speak to me! I knew thou wouldst not go! I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go. Villain, thou art not gone—thou mockest me! And thus I clutch thee—thus!——He is gone, he is gone— Gone—gone. Where am I?——'tis well—'tis very well! So that the blade be keen—the blow be sure, 'Tis well, 'tis very well—alas! alas! (exit.)

LOGIC.

Among ridiculous conceits may be selected par excellence, the thought of a celebrated Abbé—"that the heart of man being triangular, and the world spherical in form, it was evident that all worldly greatness could not fill the heart of man." The same person concluded, "that since among the Hebrews the same word expresses death and life, (a point only making the difference,) it was therefore plain that there was little difference between life and death." The chief objection to this is, that no one Hebrew word signifies life and death.

AN ADDRESS ON EDUCATION,

AS CONNECTED WITH THE PERMANENCE OF OUR REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS.

Delivered before the Institute of Education of Hampden Sidney College, at its Anniversary Meeting, September the 24th, 1835, on the invitation of that body,—by Lucian Minor, Esq. of Louisa.

[Published by request of the Institute.]

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Institute:

I am to offer you, and this large assembly, some thoughts upon EDUCATION, as a means of preserving the Republican Institutions of our country.

The sentiment of the Roman Senate, who, upon their general's return with the shattered remains of a great army from an almost annihilating defeat, thanked and applauded him for not despairing of the Republic, has, in later times, been moulded into an apothegm of political morality; and few sayings, of equal dignity, are now more hackneyed, than that "A good citizen will never despair of the commonwealth."

I shall hope to escape the anathema, and the charge of disloyalty to our popular institutions, implied in the terms of this apothegm, if I doubt, somewhat, its unqualified truth; when you consider how frequently omens of ruin, overclouding the sky of our country, have constrained the most unquestionable republican patriot's heart to quiver with alarm, if not to sink in despair.

When a factious minority, too strong to be punished as traitors, treasonably refuse to rally under their country's flag, in defence of her rights and in obedience to her laws; when a factious majority, by partial legislation, pervert the government to the ends of self-aggrandizement or tyranny; when mobs dethrone justice, by assuming to be her ministers, and rush madly to the destruction of property or of life; when artful demagogues, playing upon the credulity or the bad passions of a confiding multitude, sway them to measures the most adverse to the public good; or when a popular chief (though he were a Washington) contrives so far to plant his will in the place of law and of policy, that the people approve or condemn both measures and men, mainly if not solely, by his judgment or caprice; and when all history shews these identical causes (the offspring of ignorance and vice) to have overthrown every proud republic of former times;—then, surely, a Marcus Brutus or an Algernon Sidney,—the man whose heart is the most irrevocably sworn to liberty, and whose life, if required, would be a willing sacrifice upon her altars—must find the most gloomy forebodings often haunting his thoughts, and darkening his hopes.

Indeed, at the best, it is no trivial task, to conduct the affairs of a great people. Even in the tiny republics of antiquity, some twenty of which were crowded into a space less than two-thirds of Virginia,—government was no such simple machine, as some fond enthusiasts would have us believe it might be. The only very simple form of government, is despotism. There, every question of policy, every complicated problem of state economy, every knotty dispute respecting the rights or interests of individuals or of provinces, is at once solved by the intelligible and irreversible sic volo of a Nicholas or a Mohammed. But in republics, there are passions to soothe; clashing interests to reconcile; jarring opinions to mould into one result, for the general weal. To effect this, requires extensive and accurate knowledge, supported by all the powers of reasoning and persuasion, in discussing not only systems of measures, but their minutest details, year after year, before successive councils, in successive generations: and supposing the machinery of Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary to be so simple or so happily adjusted, that an idiot might propel it, and a school-lad with the first four rules of arithmetic—or even "a negro boy with his knife and tally stick"¹—might regulate its movements and record their results; still, those other objects demand all the comprehension and energies of no contracted or feeble mind. Nor are these qualities needful only to the actual administrators of the government. Its proprietors, the people, must look both vigilantly and intelligently to its administration: for so liable is power to continual abuse; so perpetually is it tending to steal from them to their steward or their agent; that if they either want the requisite sagacity to judge of his acts, or substitute a blind confidence in him for that wise distrust, which all experience proves indispensable to the preservation of power in the people,—it will soon be their power no longer. A tame surrender of it to him is inevitable, unless they comprehend the subjects of his action well enough to judge the character of his acts: unless they know something of that vast and diversified field of policy, of duty, and of right, in which they have set him to labor. Yes—in its least perplexed form, on its most diminutive scale, the task of self-government is a perilously difficult one; difficult, in proportion to its nobleness: calling for the highest attributes of the human character. What, then, must it be, in a system so complex as ours? Two sets of public functionaries, to appoint and superintend: two sets of machinery to watch, and keep in order: each of them not only complicated within itself, but constantly tending to clash with the other. Viewing the State government alone, how many fearful dissensions have arisen, as to the extent of its powers, and the propriety of its acts! Turning then to the Federal government, how much more awful and numerous controversies, respecting both the constitutionality and expediency of its measures, have, within half a century, convulsed the whole Union! No less than three conjunctures within that time, threatening us with disunion and civil war; not to mention the troubles of the elder Adams' administration, the conspiracy of Burr, the Missouri dispute, or the cloud (now, I trust, about to disperse) which has just been lowering in our northern sky. To the complexity of our two governments, separately considered, add the delicate problems daily springing from their relations with one another, and from the mutual relations of the twenty-four states—disputes concerning territory; claims urged by citizens of one, against another state; or wrongs done to some states, by citizens and residents of others—all these, and innumerable other questions, involving each innumerable ramifications, continually starting up to try the wisdom and temper, if not to mar the peace, of our country;—and say, if there are words forcible and emphatic enough to express the need, that the POPULAR WILL, which supremely controls this labyrinthine complication of difficulties, should be enlightened by knowledge, tempered by kindness, and ruled by justice?

¹ Mr. Randolph's Speech in the Virginia Convention, November, 1829.

Gentlemen, when such dangers hedge our political edifice; when we recollect the storms which have already burst upon it, and that, although it has survived them, we have no guarantee for its withstanding even less furious ones hereafter—as a ship may ride out many a tempest safely, and yet be so racked in her joints as to go down at last under a capful of wind; above all, when we reflect that the same cankers which have destroyed all former commonwealths, are now at work within our own;—it would betoken, to my view, more of irrational credulity than of patriotism, to feel that sanguine, unconditional confidence in the durableness of our institutions, which those profess, who are perpetually making it the test of good citizenship "never to despair of the republic."

But is it ever to be thus? Were then the visions of liberty for centuries on centuries, which our fathers so fondly cherished, all deceitful? Were the toil, and treasure, and blood they lavished as that liberty's price, all lavished in vain? Is there no deliverance for man, from the doom of subjection which kings and their minions pronounce against him? No remedy for the diseases which, in freedom's apparently most healthful state, menace her with death?

If it is not ever to be thus; if the anticipations of our revolutionary patriots were not all delusive dreams, and their blood fell not in vain to the ground; if man's general doom is not subjection, and the examples of his freedom are not mere deceitful glimmerings up of happiness above the fixed darkness which enwraps him, designed but to amuse his fancy and to cheat his hopes; if there is a remedy for the diseases that poison the health of liberty;—the reason—that remedy—can be found only in one short precept—ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE!

Nothing—I scruple not to avow—it has been my thought for years—nothing but my reliance on the efficacy of this precept, prevents my being, at this instant, a monarchist. Did I not, with burning confidence, believe that the people can be enlightened, and that they may so escape the dangers which encompass them, I should be for consigning them at once to the calm of hereditary monarchy. But this confidence makes me no monarchist: makes me, I trust, a true whig; not in the party acceptation of the day, but in the sense, employed by Jefferson, of one who trusts and cherishes the people.² Throughout his life, we find that great statesman insisting upon popular instruction as an inseparable requisite to his belief in the permanency of any popular government: "Ignorance and bigotry," said he, "like other insanities, are incapable of self-government." His authority might be fortified by those of Sidney, Montesquieu, and of all who have written extensively or luminously upon free government: but this is no time for elaborate quotations; and indeed why cite authorities, to prove what is palpable to the glance?

² "The parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats—Côté droite and côté gauche—Ultras and Radicals—Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man, fears the people, and is a tory by nature. The healthy, strong, and bold, cherishes them, and is a whig by nature." Jefferson.

Immense is the chasm to be filled, immeasurable the space to be traversed, between the present condition of mental culture in Virginia, and that which can be safely relied upon, to save her from the dangers that hem round a democracy, unsupported by popular knowledge and virtue. Cyrus the Great, when a boy, among his play fellows, avoided contests with his inferiors in strength and swiftness; always challenging to the race or the wrestling match, those fleeter and stronger than himself: by which means, observes Xenophon, he soon excelled them. Imitating this wise magnanimity of Cyrus, let us, in looking around to find how we may attain an excellence, worthy of Virginia's early and long illustrious but now paling fame, compare ourselves not with States that have been as neglectful as we, of popular education, but with some which have outstript us in that march of true glory.³

³ Montesquieu, mentioning the adoption, by the Romans, of an improved buckler from a conquered nation, remarks, that the chief secret of Roman greatness was, their renouncing any usage of their own, the moment they found a better one. ("Ils ont toujours renoncé à leurs usages, sitot qu'ils en ont trouvé de meilleurs.") Grandeur et Decadence des Romains—Chap. 1.

The Common-school system of New York, which has been in operation since the year 1816, is in substance this: The counties having been already laid off into tracts of five or six miles square, called townships,—each of these, upon raising one half the sum needed there for teachers' wages, is entitled to have the other half furnished from the state treasury: and each neighborhood in the township, before it can receive any part of this joint sum, must organize itself as a school district, build and furnish a school house, and cause a school to be taught there for at least three months, by a teacher who has been examined and found duly qualified, by a standing committee, appointed for that purpose. To the schools thus established, all children, rich and poor alike, are admitted without charge. Mark the fruits of this system. In 1832, there were in the state 508,878 children; of whom 494,959 were regular pupils at the common-schools: leaving fewer than 14,000 for private or other instruction, and reducing the number who are unschooled, to an inappreciable point. In Massachusetts, the townships are compelled by law to defray nearly the whole expense of their schools; and the organization is in other respects less perfect than in New York. In each, however, about ONE-FOURTH of the whole population is receiving instruction for a considerable part of the year; and in Massachusetts, in 1832, there were but TEN persons between the ages of 14 and 21, who could not read and write.

Connecticut, with a school fund yielding 180,000 dollars annually, and with common schools established by law in every township, finds their efficacy in a great degree marred by a single error in her plan. This error is, that the whole expense is defrayed by the state. In consequence of this, the people take little interest in the schools; and the children are sent so irregularly, as to derive a very insignificant amount of beneficial instruction: so clearly is it shewn, that a gratuity, or what seems to be one, is but lightly valued. The statesmen of Connecticut, convinced that the only method of rousing the people from their indifference, is to make them contribute something for the schools in their own immediate neighborhood, and so become solicitous to get the worth of their money, are meditating the adoption of a plan like that of New York.

Even in Europe, we may find admirable, nay wonderful examples, for our imitation.

PRUSSIA has a system, strikingly analogous to that of New York; and in some respects, superior to it. As in New York, the superintendence of popular education is entrusted to a distinct branch of the government; to a gradation of salaried officers, whose whole time is employed in regulating the courses of study, compiling or selecting books, examining teachers, and inspecting the schools. At suitable intervals, are schools expressly for the instruction of teachers: of which, in 1831, there existed thirty-three—supplying a stock of instructors, accomplished in all the various knowledge taught in the Prussian schools. In no country on earth—little as we might imagine it—is there probably so well taught a population as in Prussia. Witness the fact, that in 1831, out of 2,043,000 children in the kingdom, 2,021,000 regularly attended the common schools: leaving but 22,000 to be taught at their homes or in private academies.⁴ France, in 1833, adopted the Prussian plan, with effects already visible in the habits and employments of her people; and similar systems have long existed in Germany, and even in Austria. The schools for training teachers (called, in France and Germany, normal schools) pervade all these countries.

⁴ The enumeration in Prussia, is of children between 7 and 14 years of age; in New York, of those between 5 and 16. In Prussia, the sending of all children to school is ensured by legal penalties upon parents, guardians, and masters, who fail to send. New York approximates remarkably to the same result, by simply enlisting the interest of her people in their schools.

In England, government has yet done little towards educating the common people: but Scotland has long⁵ enjoyed parish schools equalled only by those of Prussia, Germany, and some of our own states, in creating a virtuous and intelligent yeomanry. Throughout Great Britain, voluntary associations for the diffusion of useful knowledge, in which are enrolled some of the most illustrious minds not only of the British empire but of this age, have been for years in active and salutary operation; and, by publishing cheap and simple tracts upon useful and entertaining subjects, and by sending over the country competent persons to deliver plain and popular lectures, illustrated by suitable apparatus, they have, as the North American Review expresses it, "poured floods of intellectual light upon the lower ranks of society."

⁵ Ever since 1646, except 36 years, embracing the tyrannical and worthless reigns of Charles II and James II.

From a comparison with no one of the eight American and European states that I have mentioned, can Virginia find, in what she has done towards enlightening her people, the slightest warrant for that pre-eminent self-esteem, which, in some other respects, she is so well entitled to indulge. Except England, she is far behind them all: and even England (if her Societies for diffusing knowledge have not already placed her before us) is now preparing, by wise and beneficent legislation, to lead away with the rest.

Let me not be deemed unfilial or irreverent, if I expose, somewhat freely, the deficiencies of our venerable commonwealth in this one particular. It is done in a dutiful spirit, with a view purely to their amendment: and may not children, in such a spirit and with such a view, commune frankly with one another?

A great and obvious difference between our primary school system, and the common-school systems of the northern states, is, that they take in ALL children: while we aim to instruct only the children of the poor; literary paupers. We thus at once create two causes of failure: first, the slight value which men set upon what costs them nothing, as was evinced in the case of Connecticut; second, the mortification to pride (an honest though mistaken pride,) in being singled out as an object of charity.⁶ As if these fatal errors had not sufficiently ensured the impotence of the scheme, the schools themselves are the least efficient that could be devised. Instead of teachers retained expressly for the purpose,—selected, after strict examination into their capacities, and vigilantly superintended afterwards, by competent judges—the poor children are entered by the neighboring commissioner (often himself entirely unqualified either to teach or to direct teaching,) in the private school which chance, or the teacher's unfitness for any other employment, combined always with cheapness of price, may have already established nearest at hand. There, the little protegé of the commonwealth is thrown amongst pupils, whose parents pay for them and give some heed to their progress; and having no friend to see that he is properly instructed—mortified by the humiliating name of poor scholar—neglected by the teacher—and not rigorously urged to school by any one—he learns nothing, slackens his attendance, and soon quits the temple of science in rooted disgust.

⁶ "What you say here, is verified" (said a venerable friend to me, on reading these sheets as they were preparing for the press—a friend who at the age of 72, has taken upon him to teach 12 or 14 boys; more than half of them without compensation—) "what you say here, is verified in my school. Those who do not pay, attend hardly half their time; and one, who is anxious to learn, and would learn if he came regularly, is kept by his father to work at home, and has not been to school now for more than a fortnight. And it was just so," continued he, "when I managed the W. trust fund for a charity school, 20 odd years ago. The parents could not be induced to send their children. Sometimes they were wanted at home: sometimes they were too ragged to go abroad: sometimes they had no victuals to carry to school. And when we offered to furnish them provisions if they would attend, the parents said 'no, that was being too dependent.' In short, the school produced not half the good it might have done. There was the most striking difference between the charity scholars, and those who paid." Similar testimony as to such schools may be obtained of hundreds.

Observe now, I pray you, how precisely the results agree with what might have been foretold, of such a system. In 1833, nearly 33,000 poor children (literary paupers) were found in 100 counties of Virginia; of whom but 17,081 attended school at all: and these 17,081 attended on an average, but SIXTY-FIVE DAYS OF THE YEAR, EACH! The average of learning acquired by each, during those 65 days, would be a curious subject of contemplation: but I know of no arithmetical rule, by which it could be ascertained. That it bears a much less proportion to the reasonable attainments of a full scholastic year, than 65 bears to the number of days in that year, there can be no doubt.

Ranging, out of the schools, through the general walks of society, we find among our poorer classes, and not seldom in the middling, an ignorance equally deplorable and mortifying. Judging by the number met with in business transactions, who cannot write their names or read, and considering how many there are whose poverty or sex debars them from such transactions, and lessens their chances of scholarship; we should scarcely exceed the truth, in estimating the white adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, at twenty or thirty thousand. And of many who can read, how contracted the range of intellect! The mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, all unexplored, though presented hourly to the eye; the glorious heavens, their grandeur, their distances, and the laws of their motion, unthought of; man himself—his structure, so fearful and so wonderful—those traits in his bodily and mental frame, attention to which would the most essentially conduce to bodily and mental health—all unnoted; History, Geography, tabulæ rasæ to them! And for political knowledge, upon which we of Virginia mainly pride ourselves—choose, at random, a man from the throng in any court-house yard, and question him touching the division of power between our two governments, and its distribution among the departments of each: the probabilities are ten to one, that he will not solve one in ten of your questions—even of those which are to be answered from the mere faces of the two constitutions. Take him then into that wild, where construction has been wont to expatiate, and you will find him just able to declare for or against this or that controverted power or measure: not because his reason has discerned it to be constitutional or otherwise, but because it is approved or disapproved by a chief of his own party, or by the leader of a hostile one. And the aggregate of opinions thus caught by accident, is the basis of the popular will: and it is the voice prompted by this will, that is called "The voice of God!"

Do not misapprehend me. Never would I have the voice of the people other than "the voice of God"—other than all-powerful—within its appropriate sphere. I am as loyal to their sovereignty as the most devout of their flatterers can be: and it is from my desire to see it perpetuated, that I speak out these unpalatable truths. Some roughness of handling is often necessary to heal a wound. The people, like other sovereigns, are sometimes misled by flattery: they should imitate also the wisdom of those monarchs we occasionally meet with in history, who can hear unwelcome truths, and let the speaker live; nay, hearken kindly to his discourse, and let it weigh upon their future conduct. Do I overrate the portion of the people I now address, in classing them with such monarchs?

Sagacious men have not been wanting among us, to see the radical defects of our primary school system: and in 1829, the late Mr. Fitzhugh⁷ of Fairfax, stimulated the Legislature to a feeble effort towards correcting them, by empowering the school commissioners of any county to lay it off into districts of not less than three nor more than seven miles square; and to pay, out of the public fund, two-fifths of the sum requisite for building a school house, and half a teacher's salary, for any one of those districts, whenever its inhabitants, by voluntary subscription, should raise the residue necessary for these purposes: and the schools thus established were to be open, gratuitously, alike to rich and poor. But the permissive phraseology of this statute completely neutralized its effect. It might have been foreseen, and it was foreseen, that empowering the commissioners to act, and leaving the rest to voluntary contributions, would be unavailing, where the workings of the school system had so long been regarded with apathy. The statute has been acted upon, so far as I have learned, in but three counties of the State; remaining, as to the other 107, a dead letter. I have the strongest warrant—that of actual experiment, in New York and in Massachusetts—for saying, that had the law commanded the commissioners to lay off districts in all counties where the census shewed a sufficiently dense white population; and had it then organized in the districts some local authorities, whose duty it should be to levy the needful amount upon their people;—I should have been saved the ungracious task of reproaching my country with her want of parental care; and Virginia would now be striding onward, speedily to recover the ground she has lost in the career of true greatness.

⁷ William H. Fitzhugh—whose death cannot yet cease to be deplored as a public calamity; cutting short, as it did, a career, which his extraordinary means and his devoted will alike bade fair to make a career of distinguished usefulness.

If a sense of interest, and of duty, do not prompt her people, and her legislature, immediately, to supply defects so obvious, to correct evils so glaring; surely, very shame at the contemplation of her inferiority to those, above whom she once vaunted herself so highly, will induce measures which cannot be much longer deferred without disgrace as well as danger.

In addition to normal schools (for training teachers,) an able writer in the Edinburgh Review (to which⁸ I owe the particulars of the Prussian, German, and French school systems) suggests, in my opinion very judiciously, the attaching of a Professorship to Colleges, for lecturing upon the art of instruction; to be called the professorship of Didactics. Such a chair, ably filled, would be invaluable for multiplying enlightened teachers, and for enhancing the dignity of that under-estimated pursuit. Conjointly with the normal schools, it would soon ensure an abundant supply of instructors for all the common schools.

⁸ Nos. 116, 117—July and October, 1833—reviewing several works of M. Cousin, who went as commissioner from France, to explore and report upon the Prussian and German systems of public instruction.

The kinds of knowledge which should be studied in the schools, and diffused by books, tracts, and oral lectures, among the people, form an important topic of consideration. It is not for me, at least now and here, to obtrude an inventory of my favorite subjects, or favorite books: but the claims of a few subjects upon our regard are so overshadowing, as to make dissent scarcely possible, and their omission wholly unpardonable, in any extensive view of the connexion between popular education, and popular government.

Foremost of these, is the subject of Constitutional Law, and Political Right: something of which might be taught, even in childhood. If the children of Rome were obliged, at school, to lay up in memory the laws of the Twelve Tables, with all their ferocious absurdities; how much more should the children of our country learn those fundamental laws, which guarantee to them the noble inheritance of a rational and virtuous freedom! Even to very young minds, the structure and powers of our two governments may be rendered intelligible by familiar and impartial treatises, with clear oral explanations. The merit of impartiality in these political lessons, is illustrated by the odiousness of a departure from it, which startled me the other day, in reading the THIRTY-FIFTH EDITION of a popular and in other respects an excellent History of the United States,⁹ designed for schools; where that section¹⁰ of the Federal Constitution which declares the powers of Congress, is presented thus: "The Congress of the United States shall have power to make and enforce all laws which are necessary to THE GENERAL WELFARE—AS to lay and collect taxes," &c.—going on to enumerate the specified powers, as mere examples of Congressional omnipotence! And the myriads of tender minds, which probably already owe all their knowledge of the Constitution to the abstract where this precious morsel of political doctrine occurs, can hardly fail to carry through life the impression, that the powers of Congress are virtually as unbounded as those of the British Parliament. Now, to make patriots, and not partisans—upholders of vital faith, not of sectarian doctrine—treatises for the political instruction of youth should quote the letter of every such controverted passage, with a brief and fair statement of the opinions and reasonings on both sides. The course of political study would be very incomplete, without the Declaration of Independence, and Washington's Farewell Address: and occasion might readily be found to correct or guard against some fallacies, afloat among mankind, and often mischievously used as axioms. "That the majority should govern," is an instance of them: a saying, which, by being taken unqualifiedly as at all times placing the majority above the Constitution and Laws, has repeatedly caused both to be outraged. Witness the "New Court Law" of Kentucky, in 1825; and a very similar act passed by Congress, in 1801. The prevalent opinions, that parties, and party spirit, are salutary in a republic; that every citizen is in duty bound to join one or the other party; and that he ought to go with his party, in all measures, whether they be intrinsically proper or otherwise; if not fallacies so monstrous as to make their currency wonderful, are at least propositions so questionable and so important, as to make them worthy of long and thorough investigation before they be adopted as truths.

⁹ By Charles A. Goodrich. The abstract of the Constitution is taken, he says, from "Webster's Elements of General Knowledge."

¹⁰ Article 1 § 8.

Without expending a word upon that trite theme, the utility of history to all who have any concern in government, I may be allowed to remark, that works for historical instruction, instead of being filled with sieges and battles, should unfold, as much as possible, those occult and less imposing circumstances, which often so materially influence the destinies of nations: the well-timed flattery—the lap-dog saved—the favorite's intrigue—the priest's resentment or ambition—to which field marshals owe their rise, cabinets their dissolution, massacres their carnage, or empires their overthrow. Yet the reader need not be denied the glow he will experience at the story of Thermopylæ, Marathon, Leuctra, or Bunker Hill. All those incidents, too, whether grand or minute, which may serve as warnings or as encouragements to posterity, should be placed in bold relief, and their influence on the current of events, clearly displayed. Numberless opportunities will occur, for impressing upon the minds of young republicans, truths which deeply concern the responsibilities involved in that name: the artifices of demagogues—the danger, in a democracy, of trusting implicitly to the honesty and skill of public agents—the worthlessness of popularity, unless it be "the popularity which follows, not that which is run after"¹¹—the importance of learning to resist the erring impulses of a misguided multitude, not less than the unrighteous mandates of a frowning tyrant¹²—the ease, so often exemplified, with which a people may be duped by the forms of freedom, long after the substance is gone—the incredible aptitude of example to become precedent, and of precedent to ripen into law, until usurpation is established upon the ruins of liberty—and the difference between true and false GREATNESS, so little appreciated by the mass of mankind. This last point could not be better illustrated, than by a fair comparison of Washington with Bonaparte: a task which Dr. Channing, of Boston, has executed, in an essay among the most elegant and powerful in the English or any other language.

¹¹ Lord Mansfield.

¹² The "ardor civium prava jubentium," not less than the "vultus instantis tyranni."

To render Political Economy intelligible to a moderate capacity, dissertations sufficiently plain and full might easily be extracted from the writings of Smith and Say, and from the many luminous discussions, oral and written, which it has undergone in our own country. Miss Martineau has shewn how well its truths may be set forth in the captivating form of tales: and the writings of Mr. Condy Raguet teem with felicitous illustrations.

Practical Morals—I mean that department, which teaches, and habituates us, to behave justly and kindly to our fellow creatures—will ever be poorly taught by dry precepts and formal essays. No vehicle of moral instruction is comparable to the striking narrative. How is it possible for any school-boy to rob an orchard, after having read Miss Edgeworth's "Tarlton?"—or to practise unfairness in any bargain, when he has glowed at the integrity of Francisco, in purposely shewing the bruised side of his melon to a purchaser? or not to loathe party spirit, when he has been early imbued with the rational sentiments contained in the "Barring Out?" In short, to be familiar with the mass of that lady's incomparable writings for youth, and not have the principles and feelings of economy, industry, courage, honor, filial and fraternal love, engrained into his very soul? Or how can he fail to find, in "Sandford and Merton," for the daily occasions of life, the happiest lessons of duty and humanity, and for those great conjunctures which never occur in many a life time, the most resistless incentives to a more than Roman heroism?

Other branches of knowledge are desirable for the republican citizen, less from any peculiar appositeness to his character as such, than from their tendency to enlarge his mind; and especially because, by affording exhaustless stores of refined and innocent pleasure, they win him away from the haunts of sensuality. "I should not think the most exalted faculties a gift worthy of heaven," says Junius, "nor any assistance in their improvement a subject of gratitude to man, if I were not satisfied, that to inform the understanding, corrects and enlarges the heart." Felix Neff, the Alpine pastor, whose ardent, untiring benevolence, ten years ago, wrought what the indolent would deem miracles, in diffusing knowledge, and a love of knowledge, amongst an untutored peasantry, found their indifference towards foreign missions immovable, until they had learned something of geography: but so soon as they had read the description of distant countries, and seen them upon the map, they conceived an interest in the people who dwelt there; and entered warmly into the scheme of beneficence, which before had solicited their attention in vain. "Their new acquirements," observes Neff, "enlarged their spirit, and made new creatures of them; seeming to triple their very existence." Geometry, he remarked, also "produced a happy moral development:" doubtless by the beauty of its unerring march to truth. Arithmetic it is superfluous to recommend: but its adjunct, Algebra, deserves cultivation as an exercise to the analyzing faculties; as an implement, indispensable to the prosecution of several other studies; and as opening a unique and curious field of knowledge to the view.

The physical sciences, shewing the composition and defects of soils, and the modes of remedying those defects—the natures and properties of minerals and vegetables—the modes in which different bodies affect each other—the mechanical powers—the structure of man's own frame, and the causes which benefit or injure it—the utility of these cannot escape any mind.

For books, and tracts, and oral lectures for the people, there will be no want of materials or models, or even of the actual fabrics themselves. The publications of the British and American Societies for the Diffusion of Knowledge, are mines, in which selection, compilation, and imitation, may work with the richest results to this great cause. Many of these productions, and still more eminently, the scientific writings of Dr. Franklin, afford most happy specimens of the style, suited to treatises for popular use: no parade of learning; no long word, where a short will serve the turn; no Latin or Greek derivative, where an Anglo-Saxon is at hand; no technical term, where a popular one can be used. By presenting, in a form thus brief, simple, and attractive, subjects which in their accustomed guise of learned and costly quartos or octavos, frighten away the common gaze, as from a Gorgon upon which none might look, and live, you may insinuate them into every dwelling, and every mind: the school urchin may find them neither incomprehensible, nor wearisome; and the laboring man be detained from the tippling house, and even for an hour, after the day's toil is over, from his pillow, to snatch a few morsels from the banquet of instruction.

Many will cavil at the attempt to disseminate generally, so extended a round of knowledge: and if, to escape the charge of impracticability, we say, that our aim is to impart merely a slight and general acquaintance with the proposed subjects,—then, sciolism, and smattering, will be imputed to the plan; and Pope's clever lines, so often misapplied, about the intoxicating effect of shallow draughts from the Pierian Spring, will be quoted upon us. Come the objection in prose or in verse, it is entirely fallacious.

Learning, either superficial or profound, intoxicates with vanity, only when it is confined to a few. It is by seeing or fancying himself wiser than those around him, that the pedant is puffed up. But now, all the community, male and female, are proposed to be made partakers of knowledge; and cannot be vain, of what all equally possess. Besides—the sort of knowledge that naturally engenders conceit and leads to error, is the partial knowledge of details; not a comprehensive acquaintance with outlines, and general principles. A quack can use the lancet, and knows it to have been successfully employed for severe contusions and excessive heat; but does not know the general fact, that under extreme exhaustion, indicated by a suspended pulse, stimulants, and not depletives, are proper. Seeing a man just fallen from a scaffold, or exhausted with heat and fatigue in the harvest field—his pulse gone—the quack bleeds him, and the patient dies. Again—a lounger at judicial trials, having picked up a few legal doctrines and phrases—perhaps being master of a "Hening's Justice"—conceives himself a profound jurisprudent; and besides tiring the ears of all his acquaintance with technical pedantry, he persuades a credulous neighbor, or plunges himself, into a long, expensive, and ruinous law-suit. The worthy Mr. Saddletree, and Poor Peter Peebles,¹³ are masterly pictures of such a personage: pictures, of which few experienced lawyers have not seen originals. The storm so lately (and perhaps even yet) impending from the north, and several other conspicuous ebullitions of fanaticism, are clearly traceable to the perversion of a text¹⁴ in our Declaration of Independence and Bills of Rights, detached from its natural connexion with kindred and qualifying truths, by minds uninstructed in the general principles of civil and political right. The mind which has been accustomed only to a microscopic observation of one subject, or one set of subjects, is necessarily contracted, fanatical, and intolerant: as the wrinkled crone, who, during a long life, has never passed the hills environing her cabin, or heard of any land besides her own province, believes her native hamlet the choicest abode of wisdom and goodness, and its humble church the grandest specimen of architectural magnificence, in the world; and hears with incredulity or horror, of distant countries, containing mountains, rivers, climates, and cities, such as her thoughts never conceived, and people with complexions, customs, language, and religion, different from all that she has ever known. But the intellect, that has surveyed the outlines and observed the relations of many various subjects (even though not thoroughly familiar with any,) resembles the man who by travelling, or even on a map, has traced the boundaries and marked the relative positions of different countries. Knowing that they exist, and are peopled, he readily forms distinct ideas of their surfaces, and their moral traits: their mountains, rivers, and cities, their arts, commerce, manners, institutions, and wars, rise before his imagination, or are grasped by his knowledge: and whatever he hears, he is prepared rationally to credit or reject, to approve or censure, as it comports well or ill with probability and with reason. Now, to counteract the one, and to promote the other, of these two conditions of mind, are precisely what is proposed by the advocates of popular instruction. They propose to teach outlines; and carefully to impress the fact, that only outlines are taught: so as to shew the learner, plainly, the precise extent of his knowledge, and (what is yet more important) of his ignorance. It is thus, that, being not "proud that he hath learned so much," but rather "humble that he knows no more," vanity and self-conceit will be most certainly prevented: that a wise doubt of his own infallibility will make him tolerant of dissent from his opinions: that he will be prepared at all times to extend his acquisitions easily and judiciously, and to connect them well with previous acquisitions—proving how truly Blackstone has said, in paraphrase of Cicero,¹⁵ "the sciences are social, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other:" in short, that he will approach most nearly to that "healthful, well proportioned" expansion of intellect and liberality of character, which Locke¹⁶ terms a large, sound, roundabout sense. In this point of view, it will be found that "a little learning is" not "a dangerous thing."

¹³ In "The Heart of Mid Lothian," and "Redgauntlet."

¹⁴ "All men are created equal," &c. This principle is, in substance, asserted in the Bill of Rights or Constitution of almost every State in the Union.

¹⁵ ——"omnes artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter sese continentur." Orat. pro Arch. Poet.

¹⁶ Conduct of the Understanding.

I am deeply sensible, that I have left untouched many topics, even more important and more pertinent to the main theme of my remarks, than some which I have discussed. Indeed, so wide and so varied is that main theme, that I have found myself greatly embarrassed in selecting from the numerous particulars which solicited my regard on every hand. I have not presumed to offer any fully rounded plan, of that legislative action which is so imperiously demanded by the public weal, and soon will be, I trust, by the public voice. A few hints, are all that seemed to become me, or indeed that could well be crowded into my brief share of this day's time. For a plan, both in outline and in detail, I point to our sister states and to the European countries, that have taken the lead of us: and to the virtues and wisdom, by which our statesmen will be able to supply the defects, avoid the errors, and even, I trust, surpass the excellences, of those states and countries. That the Legislature may be wrought up to act, individual influence, and the more powerful influence of associations for the purpose—of whom I deem you, gentlemen, the chief, because the first—must be exerted. You must draw the minds of the constituent body forcibly to the subject. It must be held up in every light; supported by every argument; until the people shall be persuaded but to consider it. Then, half the work will have been done. And in its further progress towards consummation—when the illuminating process shall have fairly begun—still it will be for you, gentlemen, and for those whom your example shall call into this field of usefulness with and after you, to exert, with no slumbering energy, the endowments wherewith you and they, are entrusted. You, and they, must become authors, and the prompters of authors. Books, for use in the schools, and cheap, simplifying tracts as well as books for circulation among the people, must be composed, compiled, and selected. Lectures, plain and cheap, and suitably illustrated, must be delivered through town and country. After the example of the good Watts, and of our own many illustrious contemporaries in Britain and America, learned men must oblige Science to lay aside the starched dignity and grand attire, by which hitherto she has awed away the vulgar; and to render herself universally amiable, by being humbly useful: as the wisest¹⁷ of heathens is said to have "brought Philosophy down from the skies, placed her in human haunts, and made her discourse on the daily concerns of human life."

¹⁷ Socrates. "Primus ille Philosophiam devocavit e coelo, et in urbibus collocavit, et in domus introduxit; et coegit de vita et moribus, rebusque bonis et malis quærere." Cic. Tuscul. 5.

In this whole enterprise, its undertakers should resolve to be convinced by no sneers, daunted by no difficulties, arrested by no obstacles. Difficulties and obstacles enough, indeed, will present themselves to the timid or superficial glance; but they will vanish, before calm scrutiny and brave determination. Even where the means of solving or removing them may not occur before hand to the mind, what was lately said in a worse cause, will prove to be true: "Where there is a WILL, there is a WAY." In such a cause as ours, and in reference to the epithets of "visionary," "impracticable," "chimerical," "Quixotic," and all the other imaginary lions which will be discovered in our path, well may we say, with the generous confidence of Lord Chatham, that we "trample upon impossibilities."

Has not our success, indeed, been already demonstrated? Demonstrated, in the first place, by unnumbered instances of parallel, and more stupendous enterprises, accomplished under circumstances less favorable than those which attend our undertaking? Such enterprises as the Reformation of Luther—the settlement of America—her deliverance from a foreign yoke—the teaching of the blind and the dumb¹⁸ to read and to write? Demonstrated, again, by actual experiment, that sovereign test of practicability—experiment, seven times repeated, with extensive, if not complete success—in New York, in Connecticut, in Massachusetts, in Austria, in Germany, in Prussia, in Scotland? Yes—it is no untried path we are called to tread: scarcely a step of the way, but has been explored and smoothed before us. All that we have to do, is to look around—see what others have done—correct our own procedure by what we perceive defective in theirs—and forthwith open the floodgates of light, and bid the torrent pour.

¹⁸ Dr. Johnson, after having witnessed the surprising performances of the pupils in a College for the deaf and dumb at Edinburgh in 1773, concluded that such a triumph over an infirmity apparently irremediable, left nothing hopeless to human resolution. "After having seen the deaf taught arithmetic," says he, "who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides?" Journey to the Western Islands.

Young gentlemen, foster-sons of the venerable institution near us! Some, if not all of you, are destined by your opportunities, and by bosoms glowing with honorable ambition, and beating high with the consciousness of talent, for a conspicuous part in the drama of life. Your eyes, doubtless, have already often glanced around, to see in what field you shall reap the harvest of wealth, respect, and fame, which hope represents as awaiting you. The buzz of notoriety, the palm of eloquence, the gorgeousness of office—those glittering bribes, which have lured onward their tens of thousands to mere splendid misery or to a shameful end after all—have, no doubt, displayed their attractions to you: but permit me to suggest, that if you will devote the powers with which nature and education have gifted you, to the patriot task of purifying and expanding the minds of your countrymen—besides enjoying in your latter days that sweetest of earthly thoughts, the thought of a life spent in usefulness—you may have gathered laurels of glory, compared with which, all the chaplets ever won in the tilt-yard of vulgar ambition are paltry weeds.

My wealthy fellow citizens! remember, that where suffrage is nearly universal and the majority rules, if the great body of the people be ignorant or immoral, property is never secure from assaults, under the disguise of law: either agrarian schemes, or oppressive protecting systems, or advantages to certain classes, or some form of unequal taxation; all, the result of ill-informed minds, or of depraved dispositions. And if lawlessness assume not the garb of legislation, still it is always banded with ignorance in the firing of barns, the destruction of labor-saving machinery,¹⁹ conspiracies to raise wages, and all the terrific outrages that spring from the fury of mobs. Thus, by a wise Providence, are you, who are the most able to promote the education of the people, also by far the most interested in doing so. If there can be a case, in which a judicious liberality is the truest economy, that case is now yours: and never may the ill husbandry of niggardliness be more awfully exemplified, than by your grudging a small particle of your wealth, to place the remainder beyond the reach of this peril.

¹⁹ No one can have forgotten the ravages committed, a year or two since, by the ignorant poor of Kent, and some others of the southern and middle counties of England, chiefly under the delusive idea, that their sufferings were caused by labor-saving machinery.

My fellow citizens (if any such are before me) who do not possess wealth, and who have scarcely tasted of the cup of knowledge! You surely need no exhortation to quaff freely of that cup, when it shall come within your grasp: but I do exhort you to employ your influence as men, and your constitutional power as voters, in persuading your fellow citizens, and in prompting your public agents, to adopt the requisite measures for dispelling, now and forever, the clouds and darkness in which republican freedom can never long live.

And if, at the remotest point of future time, to which we may look forward as witnessing the existence of human government any where, our democratic forms shall still retain, unimpaired, even their present purity, and present fertility of substantial freedom and happiness; much more, if they shall have waxed purer, and stronger, and more fruitful of good, with each revolving century,—defying the power or conciliating the love of foreign states—maintaining domestic harmony—oppressing none, protecting all—and so fully realizing the fondest hopes of the most sanguine statesman, that no "despair of the republic" can trouble the faintest heart:—all will be owing (under Providence,) to the hearkening of this generation and the succeeding ones, to that voice—not loud, but solemn and earnest—which, from the shrine of Reason and the tombs of buried commonwealths, reiterates and enforces the momentous precept—"ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE!"

THE WISSAHICCON.

Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray, And gushed from cleft to crag with saltless spray. Byron.

It is probable there are but few individuals residing in the vicinity of Philadelphia, who have not heard, during some interval of business engagements, of Wissahiccon creek, a beautiful and romantic stream that falls into the no less romantic Schuylkill, about five miles above the city. The stream is visited, statedly, by but a small number of persons, but as it is neither found on any map, nor marked in any gazetteer that I have ever examined, there may be some apology afforded for the indifference to magnificent scenery, manifested by hundreds and thousands of our citizens, who, though domiciled in its immediate vicinity, have never deemed it worthy of a visit. So true it is, that there is a proneness in human nature to undervalue the gifts of Providence which are placed within our reach, and to admire and covet those which are located at a distance. Were a fatiguing journey of several hundred miles necessary, in order to enjoy a ramble along the banks of the Wissahiccon, we should then, without doubt, view its placid waters, its sluggish, meandering course, its richly covered banks, and its imposing precipices, with the admiration and enthusiasm which scenes of this character never fail to inspire in the minds of those who passionately love the untouched works of the hand of nature. But the delightful little stream courses along within a few miles of our doors, and a ride to its most picturesque views, is but an hour's excursion; hence, except to a few, whose researches have discovered, and whose good taste enabled them to appreciate, the beauty, sublimity and majesty of this stream, it is almost unknown.

But there are persons who have not been thus negligent of nature's treasures in this vicinity, and to these a visit to the fascinating Wissahiccon, calls up remembrances and associations of the most delightful character. To those who enjoy Nature in her majesty—free, uncontrolled, undespoiled of her beauty by the effacing efforts of human skill—there is no spot, within a circle of many miles, so rich in imagery, so imposing in appearance, so fascinating in attraction, as the banks of the Wissahiccon. The stream takes its rise from several springs in the upper part of Montgomery county, and flows, for a short distance, through a limestone country, remarkable for fertility and a high state of cultivation. Thence it passes, south-westernly, "a sweet smiling stream sleeping on the green sward," into more undulating land, until it reaches the Chesnut ridge, from which it progresses, at times indolently, and at times with an impetuous current, through a narrow valley, hedged in on either side by high hills, steep and craggy cliffs and precipitous mountains, until it strikes the Schuylkill, about a mile above the falls. Along its whole course the scenery of the Wissahiccon is beautiful, but it is the portion lying within six or eight miles of its mouth, that is generally regarded as the most attractive, as it exhibits, in bolder relief than any other portion, the peculiar sublimity and grandeur of the stream, and the imposing and majestic ledge of rock work through which it passes. It is along this distance that I have been accustomed to ramble during leisure moments, for years, and it is under the shade of the forests of brilliant hue that line its banks, that I have often reclined, and enjoyed, undisturbed, the sweet melody of nature, issuing from the bursting green foliage around me. I love nature with enthusiasm, and whether standing on the bank of a running stream and listening to the sweet gushing sound of its waters, or seated on an eminence overlooking the waving fields of golden fruit that bless the labor of the husbandman; whether enchanted by the Siren song of nature's minstrels in the spring, or watching the many-colored leaves of the forest, as they are borne through the air by the whistling winds of autumn—there is, in the scene before me, absorbing attraction, calling forth reflections which never fail to mellow down the selfish and unkind feelings of the heart, and to shed a peaceful, consoling, and happy influence—all-pervading and lasting in its impressions—over the heart.

The wild and majestic are, however, the scenes to which I am most strongly attached, and which invariably elicit, to a greater extent than those of a softer character, passionate emotions of wonder and admiration. I love to stand at the base of a mountain whose summit reaches the clouds, and to clamber among rocks and under precipices whose projecting cliffs threaten destruction to the hardy adventurer—I love to explore the dense forests of our bold and beautiful hills, and to bury myself in the hidden recesses of nature, where the foot of man has never trod, where the sound of civilization has never been heard—I love to stand at the foot of Niagara, and watch the mighty torrent of a mighty inland sea hurling its concentrated power into the gulph below, and to gaze deep, deep, into that awful abyss—unfathomable, destructive, appalling—I love to see the elements at war, to hear the rush of the tornado and whirlwind, laying prostrate in their furious course every impediment to their destructive progress, and to witness the fall of the powerful oak and the whirlings of its cleft branches in the sea of matter above, crushing and overwhelming the most formidable obstacles of art. These are scenes in which the spirit of the enthusiast revels, and they are scenes which strike the soul with awe, speaking trumpet-tongued of the presence of an Almighty power, of the omnipotence of his authority, of the insignificance of human effort, and the frailty of human life.

The scenery near the mouth of the Wissahiccon is of a wild, romantic, and imposing character, beautiful in its ever-varying aspect, and interesting in its mystic associations. High hills, occasionally assuming the appearance of mountains, rise on either side, covered with a dense and beautifully-variegated foliage. The dogwood, with its beautiful flowers, the chesnut, the locust, the melancholy willow, the sumac, the gum, with its vermillion leaves, and the gloomy hemlock, flourish here in all their native grandeur; and the lofty oak, the father of the forest, stretches out his thickly-covered branches to afford shade and shelter to the weary pedestrian. Wild flowers, in great number and varieties, rivalling each other in loveliness, are found in the underwood, giving effect to the drapery of the verdant trees, by enlivening the dark hues of the thickly-growing and overshadowed forest. Some of these flowers and plants are of rare quality and surpassing beauty, and far eclipse in attraction many that are cultivated with care and pride in our gardens; but here they spring up, year after year, in silence and solitude, being literally

"———Born to blush unseen, And waste their fragrance on the desert air."

In the valley of the stream, along the eastern side of which, for a mile or two, a convenient road has been chisseled and scooped out of the sides of the stony hill, the vision is completely obstructed by the imposing banks, and hills rising above hills, on either shore; and but for the unpoetic noise of a laboring mill, and the span of a rude bridge which crosses to a small cavern or cleft in the rocky slope, there would be nothing to betray the presence of man, or to mark the contiguity of human enterprise. Alas! that not one spot—not even the glorious Wissahiccon—bearing the undoubted impress of the hand of the God of nature, can escape the desolating depredations and officious interference of the onward march of civilization.

The carriage road commencing at the mouth of the Wissahiccon, crosses the stream on a covered bridge, about a mile and a half above, winds up a hill of considerable elevation, and passes over to the ridge. From the covered bridge access along the creek is obtained by means of a foot path, on the western side, which is marked through the forest, over crags and cliffs, rugged rocks and rooted trees, until it reaches a beautiful green lawn, a little parlor in the wilderness, celebrated as the resort of occasional pic-nic parties of young ladies and gentlemen from the city, and where, on the grassy floor, youth and beauty have often mingled in the graceful dance, and joined in the merry song of innocence and gay hilarity. It is a sweet spot, and surrounded, as it is, by scenery of the wildest and most romantic character, may very appropriately be designated the "oasis of the Wissahiccon." Near this place, immediately on the water's edge, the ruins of an antiquated stone building are discovered, scattered over the ground, and as no trace of the original appearance of the edifice can be found, the imagination is permitted to enjoy free scope in dwelling upon the character and pursuits of its ancient founders. On the opposite side, the banks rise up, in many places almost perpendicularly, to the height of mountains, and but few have the temerity to attempt a passage along the course of the stream, as a single false step might hurl them among the dangerous rocks and jutting cliffs below. Here, as well as on the western side, several clefts and caverns in the granite rocks may be found, but it does not appear that they extend to any great depth under the massive structure; and here, upon the edge of a hill, may be seen the point at which it was sometime since proposed to throw a bridge over the stream, to carry across the rail road from Philadelphia to Norristown. The projectors of the scheme reached thus far in their onward progress, but in casting a glance over the precipice into the gulph below, were struck with dismay at the formidable obstacles which appeared, and prudently abandoned the hazardous and wildly-conceived undertaking.

Near Garsed's flax mill, the foot-path crosses to the eastern shore of the stream, on a rude log chained to an adjacent stone, and passes up through a forest overhanging the sluggish waters, and through a thick underwood, which, in some places, is almost impenetrable. Occasional openings in the dense foliage, which become more frequent as the pedestrian progresses up the stream, afford highly picturesque and enchanting views of the surrounding hills, such as those who appreciate Nature in her majesty, would journey miles upon miles, and endure pain and fatigue without murmuring, to behold. In every direction the scenes unfolded to the eye are rich and enchanting beyond description, and remind the writer who associates therewith ideas of intellectual pleasure and enjoyment, of the beautiful lines of the poet:

"Dear solitary groves, where peace doth dwell! Sweet harbors of pure love and innocence! How willingly could I forever stay Beneath the shade of your embracing greens, List'ning unto the harmony of birds, Tun'd with the gentle murmur of the stream."

One of the most interesting spots on the Wissahiccon, is in the immediate vicinity of the great perpendicular rock of granite, opposite Rittenhouse's mill. Here the dark shadows of the hill fall, with beautiful effect, upon the gurgling stream, and the rich and deep woodland foliage, the tangled and fragrant shrubbery, the towering cliffs on the one side, and imposing hills and dales on the other, give to the place a charm and fascination, which the reflecting mind may enjoy, but of which it is impossible to convey with the pen, any accurate description. It was near this enchanting place, on the sun side of a high hill, as is currently believed, that Kelpius and his friend, scholars of Germany, located themselves about the close of the seventeenth century, and where for years they dwelt in quiet and religious meditation, awaiting, with anxious prayer, the coming of the "Lady of the Wilderness," and where they died, as we now know, "without the sight." It was here, that, at a period long anterior to the arrival of Kelpius, the untamed monarch of these wilds came to enjoy the rich treasures of nature, and to worship, in silence, the goodness and bounty of the Great Spirit. It was here, perhaps, on the summit of this very hill, that the original owners of the soil convened for the war dance and to make preparations for a furious and bloody contest; or mayhap it was here that the chiefs of different tribes assembled to bury the hatchet of war, and to smoke the calumet of amity and peace. Perhaps it was here that the noble young warrior, flushed with the honors of victory, stole silently at the midnight hour, to breathe his tale of love and his vows of devotion, into the ear of his blushing and affianced bride; and surely no spot can be found, in the whole range of our wide-spread territory, so suitable for scenes of this character. Here is the abode of romance, here the spirit of nature holds undisputed sway—and here, among these rugged rocks, and in this dense foliage—by the side of this poetic stream, with its associations of woody heights and shady dells, it is fitting that pure and holy vows of love should be uttered, where Heaven, in every leaf of the forest, in every blade of grass, may be called upon to bear witness to their sincerity and truth.

But the Wissahiccon has fallen into other hands. The untutored savage no longer strolls over these silent mountains and vales, for his abode has been removed far away, beyond the western waters. The bones of his warrior fathers lie bleached and neglected in the depths of the valley, for the high-bounding spirit of the son is tamed, by the contaminating influence of his civilized brethren. The active deer no longer bounds over the hills and dales of the Wissahiccon, for he has been driven to more sequestered abodes. The stream is, however, much the same—its placid waters are still beautiful as mirrors—its shores are still romantic—its groves are still enchanting—and so may they ever remain, undisturbed, untouched by the dilapidating hand of man! The place should ever be reserved as a refreshing retreat, where the soul may be uplifted in devotion, and the heart gladdened in sweet contemplation—where no sound shall be heard but the notes of melody and joy, in delightful unison with the tones of the murmuring rill.

"To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain, all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not solitude—'tis but to hold Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd."

Two or three miles above the perpendicular rock, on the eastern shore of the stream, and in a spot equally beautiful and romantic, stands an edifice of great antiquity, connected with which there are a number of interesting associations. It is built nearly on the summit of a slope that stretches into a ravine, walled in on three sides by elevated hills, thickly covered with foliage. The building is of stone, three stories high, with numerous windows, four to each chamber, of uniform size, and appearance; sixty years ago there was a balcony around the second story, and the old-fashioned eaves, plastered in semi-circular form, still to be seen, exhibit the architectural taste and style of a past century. The date of its erection is supposed to be the year 1706, and its founders a society of religious Germans, probably known as Pietists or Seven day Baptists, who no doubt selected this secluded situation in order to secure peace and quietness in their religious devotions. Many of the aged inhabitants of the neighborhood remember this monastery, as a building of unchanged appearance, even from the days of their boyhood, and some have connected therewith curious traditions of romance and legends of mystic tale. Notwithstanding the edifice has lately undergone a thorough alteration, and is now the permanent residence of a highly respectable and very intelligent family, it still bears the reputation of being visited by spirits.

The fact of this building having been occupied as a monastery, by a brotherhood of Germans, is, however, involved in doubt. One tradition alleges, that it was tenanted for sometime, by a fraternity of Capuchins, or White Friars, who took upon themselves vows of abstinence and poverty, and who slept upon wooden or stone pillows, with places scolloped out for the head. In confirmation of this tradition, an ancient burial place near the premises, now under tillage, is pointed out, where repose the remains of many of the brotherhood. Another and more probable story is, that the building was actually erected for a religious society, professing a faith similar to that of the Seven day Baptists at Ephrata, near Lancaster, but never occupied, as those for whom it was designed deemed it expedient to leave the neighborhood, and join the settlement at Ephrata. The Chronica Ephrata expressly states that, previous to the formation of that community, in May, 1733, they had dwelt in separate places as hermits, and "the hermits of the ridge" are frequently mentioned. That there was a feeling of affection between these hermits and the brotherhood in Ephrata, is beyond all doubt, as the Chronica, in another place, speaks of some brothers of single devotedness at Roxborough, "who subsequently fell in with the spirit of the world and married."

Kelpius, probably the first of the hermits, on the Wissahiccon, died in the year 1708. He was succeeded by Seelig, who survived him many years, and who was contemporary with Conrad Matthias, another recluse, whose cave was near the Schuylkill. Tradition speaks of these Germans as being men of undoubted piety and great learning. Kelpius wrote several languages, and his journal, in Latin, is now in the possession of a distinguished antiquarian of Philadelphia. He waited the coming of the "Lady of the Wilderness,"—the "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," spoken of in the scriptures, as having "fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." (Rev. xii.) We may wonder that such a man as Kelpius should labor under a delusion of this character, but those who will visit the spot he selected for his "prayerful waiting," will agree with me in opinion that it was singularly well chosen to harmonize with and foster his eccentric views, and romantic religious expectations.

There is another interesting legend, connected with the monastery on the Wissahiccon, which I feel inclined to allude to, if I may do so without being held responsible for its veracity. It is a tale of unhappy love, and relates to a young, beautiful, and accomplished French lady, who followed her lover to the Indian wars, who fought in disguise by his side, and who closed his eyes when he fell at her feet, mortally wounded. Being subsequently admitted, for temporary shelter, into the monastery, she passed a year or two in unavailing grief, and died, heart-broken at the loss of all she held near and dear on earth. The particulars of the melancholy fate of the beautiful Louisa I may hereafter unfold to the reader, but I beg my young friends who may discover the mound which covers her remains at the foot of a weeping willow, washed by the gurgling stream, to shed a tear to the memory of one whose beauty and virtues deserved a happier fate.

I have thus attempted to give a sketch of the ever-delightful Wissahiccon, and to cast a hasty glance at a few of the prominent incidents with which it was once associated. If I have failed to excite interest in the mind of the reader, let him not hesitate to attribute the circumstance to the feeble powers of the writer, rather than to the poverty of the subject to which his attention has been called. Beautiful and magnificent beyond comparison are the picturesque views of this romantic stream, and for ages to come may its crystal waters continue to course through the valley, affording peaceful enjoyment to the pedestrian on its banks, and unqualified delight to those who may ramble through its attractive forests.

Philadelphia, October 1835.

LE BRUN.

Le Brun, a Jesuit, wrote what he called a Christian Virgil, and a Christian Ovid. The Virgil consists, of Eclogues, Georgics, and an Epic of twelve books, all however on devotional subjects. The Ovid is in the same taste. The Epistles are pious ones—the Fasti are the six days of the Creation—the Elegies are the Lamentations of Jeremiah—the Art of Love is a poem on The Love of God, and the history of some Conversions supplies the place of the Metamorphoses.

MEMORY.

Oh! why should Memory love to dwell On pleasures which can come no more? And why should Fancy's magic spell So brightly gild each scene of yore? Ev'n Hope's delusive, glittering beam May cease to shed its cheering light; And, dull and cold, Time's onward stream May flow before the aching sight. But Memory, like a fairy dream, Still haunts the pensive view, And, like mild Evening's lingering beam, Clothes fading scenes in loveliest hue. The Past, with all its glittering train Of joys, so sweet, so quickly fled, At Memory's touch returns again, To cheer the heart whose hopes are dead. Fond Retrospection lingers near Each scene of bliss which could not last, And links again that chain so dear, Which Memory flings around the past. Hopes, Friendships, Loves—a seraph band— Which Time's cold blast had rudely torn, As Memory waves her magic wand, With more than former bliss return. They come, like Music's distant breath, So soft, so sweet their whisperings are— And fadeless is that lovely wreath With which they bind the brow of care. Oh! Memory's joys will always last— No cloud can dim their brilliant ray; Still bright and brighter glows the Past, As Hope's sweet visions fade away.

THE CITY.

The City—the City—its glare and din— Oh! my soul is sick of its sights and shows, My spirit is cramp'd, and my soul pent in— I can scarcely think, and it seems to me My very breathing is not so free, As where the breeze in its freedom blows, And the vines untrammel'd but seem to be Disporting to tell of their liberty. There, there I'd be—Oh! my spirit pines For the rivers, the trees, and the forest vines. From the crowded streets, and the jostling throng, And garish glitter, and vain parade— My native woods! how I long, I long To bury me in thy wilds again; Then Art, and Fashion, and Form, oh! then I'll eschew ye all in my wild-wood shade. Like an uncaged bird, I shall scarcely know Which way to bend me, or whither to go; Yet I think my spirit would grateful rise Unto God, who dwells in the clear blue skies.

Columbia, S. C.

MACEDOINE:

BY THE AUTHOR OF OTHER THINGS.

I.

"I tell it as 'twas whispered unto me, By a strange voice not of this world I ween."

The Baron has gone to a distant land Beyond the far wave the sun sets on; Last eve but one he kissed his hand To his lady, the lovely Marion, As he urged his proud courser along the plain That leads to the sea, from his wide domain, In the van of a gallant vassal train. In sooth, her lord is a noble knight As e'er couched lance in tourney or fight— But yet the lady loved him not, And heaven ne'er blest their lonely lot. "No little voices, no fairy footfalls Broke the deep hush of their silent halls;" For Coldness hung over their bridal couch, And chilled their hearts with his icy touch. The lady scarce smiled when her lord was nigh— And when she did, her pensive eye Had somewhat in its look the while Which seemed to chide the moment's guile, And check the mimic play of mirth To which the lip alone gave birth. Like light that sports on frozen streams That warm not in its wintry beams, Is the smile of the lip that would fain seem glad— Albeit the heart is gloomy and sad.

* * * * *

I watched the lady from afar, As she sat in the western balcony— Oh! none more beautiful could be; The sun had sunk upon the sea, And twilight came with the evening star. The lady leaned o'er the balustrade,— I ween 'twas not the voice of the breeze That came from the grove of orange trees; For the lady started as half afraid, And her cheek turned pale, then flushed blood-red, As the voice of lips invisible said: "Meet me to-night by the bastioned wall, When the midnight moon looks over the sea— When the mermaid sleeps in her ocean hall, And the world seems made but for you and me."

* * * * *

'Twas a lovely night—the moonlit sea Was smooth and fair as beauty's brow; And down in the coral caves below, Where white pearls lie, and seaflowers grow, The mermaid was dreaming quietly. And lo! a knight and a lady fair Stood in the shade of the bastioned wall: I watched them as they lingered there— Oh! they were to each other all In the wide, wide world their hearts held dear; He clasped her trembling to his breast, And kissed from her lids the glittering tear. She sighed, and pointed to the west, And again her tears flowed unreprest;

* * * * *

II.

SONG.

Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink—and remember his misery no more.

Proverbs—Chap. xxxi. 6 and 7.

This is a dark and dreary world To which we're vainly clinging— We spurn at life, yet dread the fate Each hour is nearer bringing. It is not love—it is not hope, That binds us to our sorrow— But wild vague fears—a shrinking dread Of an unearthly morrow: Then wreath the bowl, and pour the wine— A truce to sober thinking— And pledge the joy that lingers yet— The deep, deep joy of drinking. Oh! 'tis a dark and fearful curse Hangs o'er this brief existence— The knowledge of a fixed doom That mocks our poor resistance. In vain the path is strewed with flowers, The truth will ne'er forsake us— A grisly demon dogs our steps, And must at last o'ertake us: Then wreath the bowl, and pour the wine— Avaunt all idle thinking— And pledge the joy that yet remains— The deep, deep joy of drinking.

III.

RUINS.

Ye grey and mouldering walls!—ye ivied towers! From whence the midnight-loving bird doth pour Her dreary note upon the solemn hour! Ye dim arcades!—ye fancy-haunted bowers! Ruined—but how majestic in decay! I love thee well; and gazing thus on thee In twilight solitude, it seems to me A spirit voice comes stealing up this way— The voice of vanished years—and many a tale It tells my musing mind of gallant lords And ladies gay—of moonlight-whispered words, And deeds of high renown—of crimes that pale The cheek to dream—and the malignant scowl Of evil eyes beneath the monkish cowl.

IV.

SONNET.

Oh! I could almost weep to think that thou Whom heaven hath moulded in a form as fair As fancy pictures those of upper air, Shouldst thus belie the promise of that brow Where truth seems to repose, pure as its snow. Alas! that treachery should lurk beneath Such smiles!—a hidden serpent in a wreath Of Eden flowers!—what art thou, wouldst thou know? In all thy pride of charms?—A living tomb Of buried hopes—the grave of ruined hearts Which trusted, loved thee,—dreaming not that arts Which taught the soul excess of bliss, would doom The worshipper to—no! not Death, but worse— And yet thou art too fair a thing to curse.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. VI.

"The letters are original, though sometimes in bad taste, and generally verbose."

Edinburgh Review.

I had not been a long time at College before I received a large packet from home, enclosing a number of letters from my uncle, Frederick, and Lucy. One of them was folded in an odd fashion—directed in a stiff and inky hand, and surmounted with a mass of red sealing wax, on which was rudely impressed the ragged outline of the Granby arms. This was one of my uncle's pedantic, prolix, advisory, and generous epistles, and I was soon placed in possession of the following neatly written sentences.

Chalgrave, ——.

My Dear Boy:—When Erasmus visited Sir Thomas More, that obstinate sophist, and that martyr to a scolding wife, (how nobly he bore her!) he said that he could always write a pleasing letter when his hand was the secretary of his heart. En passant, Erasmus made a gallant speech on this memorable visit. In admiring the kind fashion of saluting females with a kiss, on your arrival or departure from an entertainment, he said, and that philosophically, that this habit preserved health, in calling a constant and blushing glow to the cheek, and that in his moments of sickness he could wish no happier situation than to be placed near an English nunnery, where if he could not be kissed for charity he might yet live in hopes of it. Now my hand is the obedient secretary, and my heart is anxious to dictate its duties. How true, yet how simple is this conceit! and how far superior to the monkish verbosity, and strangled sentiment of those bad novels which you read merely because they are new. The heart is the écritoire of the letter writer, and have you never paused with feelings of admiration and delight over the affectionate and eloquent letters of a woman? She writes from the heart, and pours out the swelling torrent of all her thoughts and feelings. Man thinks what to write, and will fritter away feeling and sacrifice nature in the struggle for easy periods and mellifluous cadences. It is not learning that shadows with tints of tenderness the beautiful letters of Tully—nor is it philosophy which lends that nameless grace, and elastic interest, to the epistles of Pliny. 'Tis nature whose affections, like the rainbow, beautify and hallow the roughness of every spot over which it spans its creative arch. A letter, says Tully, cannot blush, "epistola enim non erubescit," if it could, it would never have this characteristic when I addressed it to you. I cannot write aught that will suffuse either your cheek or mine, though I might whisper something about your fair cousin, Isa Gordon. You love her, Lionel? and she may return your affection, but you must owe it to your distinction. Isa is no sickly and prurient-hearted girl who can solely love the person, for she demands the intellectual man, and in the hymeneal chaplet which is to adorn her brow, the laurel must twine its emblematic vanities. Let this hope excite you to study—let this holy object imp your eagle wing, for on every page of your books you must see her name urging and stimulating the slumbering energies of your ambition. I would not have you free from love, nor untouched, as Spenser calls it, by its pensive discontent, for no young man can prosper without its stirring and startling excitements. I myself, "vixi puellis idoneus," and I know that it softens the asperities of temper—gentles the turbulence of youth—breaks down the outworks of vice, and detracts no more from the firmness of mind than the polish of the diamond does from its solidity. You may read philosophy and think of woman—dwell on poetry and find your taste expanding into delicacy and elevation by dreaming of her gentleness, and I suppose that even in the crabbed study of the law, you may find her image peeping over black letter, or smiling through yellow parchment. When I was at college poor Ridon whom Johnstone shot, ('twas a fair duel) being in love, translated most of that portion of Coke upon Littleton which relates to females, into poetry of all styles, and measures. Only think of his drawing poetical conceits from this dull book, and scattering them on the margin of the leaden volume, like so many flowers prodigally thrown into a grave-yard! I have this rare copy, and in a page blotted with notes, references, and quæres, these crippled lines, have stumbled themselves into the text.

"Tenant per la curtesie d'Englettere."

Chap. iv. sect. 35.

A feme that has lands Enters Hymen's bands, And has heirs in the nuptial tye; Then these lands shall descend, When her life's at an end, To her Lord in curtesy.

This species of poetry was all that he ever wrote, and he was wont to say, that he thought it was his duty to the sex, to use the language of rhyme, and thus make the law respectful.

I do not know how to advise you about the study of law. I once looked into it, and though it may be a garden teeming with the elegancies of Poestum, I could not bear that rough dragon of pedantry, Coke, who guarded its threshold. It is a sort of hustle-cap game, between judges and lawyers, and a perilous mystery wherein common sense cannot trust itself, without that peculiar and dogged impudence, which bears all the vulgarity, without the courage, of effrontery. Now there is philosophy in every thing, and if you will acquire decent effrontery I will call it, for your sake, dignity and learning; and I will even believe that it requires some mind to understand a plain statute, and some genius to pervert it. Yet I cannot look with a sarcastic eye on the hallowed relics of the legal institutions of antiquity. Go back, my dear boy, to the redundant fountains of ancient literature—and you will find that Plato and Tully, have long ago, looked up for the pure seat of law only to the bosom of God, and that the Norman gibberish and dog-latin, which were quoted to burn witches and sustain kings, though they may make you a lawyer skilled in precedents, can never make you the scourge of knavery, the fearless champion of innocence, nor the enlightened advocate of your country's rights. Old Sir Roger L'Estrange wrote a mournful valedictory, when he left the riots and Apician nights of the Inns for the labors and stolid gravity of the bar, and, amid many sarcasms on the profession, he has thus happily sketched the character of an honest lawyer.

"He can prosecute a suit in equity without seeking to create a whirlpool where one order shall beget another, and the poor client be swung around (like a cat before execution,) from decree to rehearing—from report to exception, and vice versâ, till his fortunes are shipwrecked, and himself drowned, for want of white and yellow earth to wade through on. He does not play the empiric with his client, and put him on the rack to make him bleed more freely; casting him into a swoon with frights of a judgment, and then reviving him again with a cordial writ of error, or the dear elixir of an injunction, to keep the brangle alive, as long as there are any vital spirits in the pouch. He can suffer his neighbors to live quiet about him without perpetual alarms of actions and indictments, or conjuring up dormant titles to every commodious seat, and making land fall five years purchase, merely for lying within ten miles of him."

Devote most of your leisure hours to the study of Virginian antiquities, for it is a noble field, and one which glows into beauty beneath cultivation. Williamsburg itself is a hoary and whitened monument of ancient pomp and power, and there still dwells around it the trembling twilight of former greatness. There is something distinctive, learned, and patriotic, in the character of a home antiquary, which will lift you far above the little pedants, who have dipped the wing in Kennet, or tasted of the shallow learning of Athenian Stuart. Do you not remember the indignant, yet pathetic lines which Warton wrote in a blank leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon, and the spirited scorn with which he repels the sneers of ignorance and dulness? The antiquary is neither a visionary, nor an enthusiast, for his pursuits teach the holiest love of country, and call into action the softest and gentlest affections of the human heart, while his guileless life occasionally shines forth with the chastened light of virtue and learning. Virginia is a land whose thrilling history beggars all romance—every fragment of which, like a broken vase, will multiply perfume. Who knows aught of that gallant band, who so fearfully revenged the massacre of 1622?—the bold patriots who resisted the illegal restrictions on trade—the intrepid spirits who, led by Bacon, anticipated by a century our national æra, or that chivalric corps, who, under Vernon, rotted on the pestilential shores of Carthagena? Who dwells with the patriot's pride, on that unconquerable strength of infant freedom which made historic Beverley the Hampden of the colony? Or who troubles himself to inquire into the blood-stained life of that Westmoreland Parke, who seized the throne of Antigua, and who died in the last dyke of a bootless though fiercely fought field? Who cares to remember the enlightened and learned botanist Clayton, whose modest book, written in the purest Latin, gained for himself and country, a once proud though now forgotten fame? And who will believe that the wise, pious, and eloquent Bishop Porteus was born, and gambolled away his boyhood on the sunny shores of the majestic York-river? They are all forgotten! and we neglect the vivid and truthful romance of our own beautiful land, to learn the nursery tales of fickle Greece, and factious Rome. In the shifting of the social scene, naught has been left to remind us of the busy drama once acted in Virginia, and even garrulous tradition now doubts its existence, while our feet hourly trample on the sepulchered silence of all that once adorned, dignified, and elevated human nature.

I do not wish to give you a learned essay on books, nor to advise you what authors to read. Your taste is now matured, and that faculty will see that justice is done to its delicacy. The great object of study is to teach us how, and not what to think; and the principal art of authorship is the power of pilfering with judgment from the ruins of ancient lore. But trust not to this poor and suspicious honor. Rely for success on the daring emprise of your own genius, and should it fail to lift you from the earth, descend not to the dunghill of pedantry. Be a poet for the women—a historian for the men—and a scholar for your own happiness. Confirm your taste by satiating memory with the beauties of the Spectator, and let Horace hourly talk you into the dignity and elegance of the sensible gentleman. Be accurate, rather than extensive, in your knowledge of history, and a recollection of dates will give you victory in every contest. Learn the technicalities of geometry; for this will satisfy the groping mathematician, while the world will take your pedantry for wisdom, and your crabbed words for learning. There has been, and ever will be, an everlasting conflict between the radiant course of genius, and the mole-hill track of diagrams and problems. Strength of mind is claimed as the attribute of mathematical study, while we forget that any other study, pursued with the same strictness of attention, will equally fashion the mind into system and method, while it will be free from the slavish obedience and indurated dulness, which result from the memory of lines and proportions.