listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down; but they wept not. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where 5 the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the human race. They shrunk from no dangers; and they 10 feared no hardships.

If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their 15 fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.

But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth? The sachems, and the tribes? The hunters, and their families? They have perished. They 20 are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No, nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores,- -a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated,- -a poison, which betrayed 25 them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region, which they may now call their

own.

The

Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them 30 leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is 35 upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans.

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There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage, absorbed in despair. They linger but for a

moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be re-passed by them,-no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know, and feel, that there is for 5 them still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race.

LESSON CLXIX.-EDMUND BURKE.-A. H. EVERETT.

A sagacious critic has advanced the opinion, that the merit of Burke was almost wholly literary; but, I confess I see little ground for this assertion, if literary excellence is here understood in any other sense, than as an imme5 diate result of the highest intellectual and moral endowments. Such compositions, as the writings of Burke, suppose, no doubt, the fine taste, the command of language, and the finished education, which are all supposed by every description of literary success. But, in the present 10 state of society, these qualities are far from being uncommon; and are possessed by thousands, who make no pretensions to the eminence of Burke, in the same degree, in which they were by him. Such a writer as Cumberland, for example, who stands infinitely below Burke, on the 15 scale of intellect, may yet be regarded as his equal or superior, in purely literary accomplishments, taken in this exclusive sense.

The style of Burke is undoubtedly one of the most splendid forms, in which the English language has ever 20 been exhibited. It displays the happy and difficult union of all the richness and magnificence that good taste admits, with a perfectly easy construction. In Burke, we see the manly movement of a well-bred gentleman; in Johnson, an equally profound and vigorous thinker, the measured 25 march of a grenadier. We forgive the great moralist his stiff and cumbrous phrases, in return for the rich stores of thought and poetry which they conceal; but we admire in Burke, as in a fine antique statue, the grace with which the large flowing robe adapts itself to the majestic dignity 30 of the person.

But, with all his literary excellence, the peculiar merits of this great man were, perhaps, the faculty of profound and philosophical thought, and the moral courage which led him to disregard personal inconvenience, in the expression 35 of his sentiments. Deep thought is the informing soul.

that everywhere sustains and inspires the imposing grandeur of his eloquence. Even in the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, the only work of pure literature which he attempted, that is, the only one which was not an im5 mediate expression of his views on public affairs, there is still the same richness of thought, the same basis of "divine philosophy," to support the harmonious superstructure of the language. And the moral courage, which formed so remarkable a feature in his character, contributed not 10 less essentially to his literary success.

It seems to be a law of nature, that the highest degree of eloquence demands the union of the noblest qualities of character, as well as intellect. To think, is the highest exercise of the mind; to say what you think, 15 the boldest effort of moral courage; and both these things are required, for a really powerful writer. Eloquence, without thoughts, is a mere parade of words; and no man can express, with spirit and vigor, any thoughts but his own. This was the secret of the eloquence of Rousseau, 20 which is not without a certain analogy, in its forms, to that of Burke. The principal of the Jesuits' college one day inquired of him, by what art he had been able to write so well; "I said what I thought," replied the unceremonious Genevan; conveying, in these few words, the bitterest 25 satire on the system of the Jesuits, and the best explanation of his own.

LESSON CLXX.-NATIONAL SELF-RESPECT.-BEMAN.

Far be it from me to cherish, in any shape, a spirit of national prejudice, or to excite, in others, a disgusting national vanity. But, when I reflect upon the part which this country is probably to act in the renovation of the 5 world, I rejoice that I am a citizen of this great republic. This western continent has, at different periods, been the subject of every species of transatlantic abuse. In former days, some of the naturalists of Europe told us, that everything here was constructed upon a small scale. The 10 frowns of nature were represented, as investing the whole hemisphere we inhabit. It has been asserted, that the eternal storms, which are said to beat upon the brows of our mountains, and to roll the tide of desolation at their bases, the hurricanes which sweep our vales, and the 15 volcanic fires which issue from a thousand flaming craters, the thunderbolts which perpetually descend from

heaven, and the earthquakes, whose trepidations are felt to the very centre of our globe, have superinduced a degeneracy, through all the productions of nature. Men have been frightened into intellectual dwarfs; and the 5 beasts of the forest have not attained more than half their ordinary growth!

While some of the lines and touches of this picture have been blotted out, by the reversing hand of time, others have been added, which have, in some respects, carried the con10 ceit still farther. In later days, and, in some instances, even down to the present period, it has been published and republished from the enlightened presses of the old world, that so strong is the tendency to deterioration on this continent, that the descendants of European ancestors are far inferior 15 to the original stock, from which they sprang. But inferior in what? In national spirit and patriotic achievement? Let the revolutionary conflict,-the opening scenes at Boston, and the catastrophe at Yorktown,-furnish the reply. Let Bennington and Saratoga support their respective claims. 20 Inferior in enterprise? Let the sail that whitens every ocean, and the commercial spirit that braves every element, and visits every bustling mart, refute the unfounded aspersion. Inferior in deeds of zeal and valor for the church? Let our missionaries in the bosom of our own forest, in the 25 distant regions of the east, and on the islands of the great Pacific, answer the question. Inferior in science, and letters, and the arts? It is true our nation is young; but we may challenge the world to furnish a national maturity, which, in these respects, will compare with ours.

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The character and institutions of this country, have already produced a deep impression upon the world we inhabit. What, but our example, has stricken the chains of despotism from the provinces of South America,-giving, by a single impulse, freedom to half a hemisphere ? 35 A Washington here, has created a Bolivar there. The flag of independence, which has long waved from the summit of our Alleghany, has now been answered by a corresponding signal, from the heights of the Andes. And the same spirit, too, that came across the Atlantic wave with 40 the pilgrims, and made the rock of Plymouth the cornerstone of freedom, and of this republic, is travelling back to the east. It has already carried its influence into the cabinets of princes; and it is, at this moment, sung by the Grecian bard, and emulated by the Grecian hero.

LESSON CLXXI.INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT.-J. C. CALHOUN.

On this subject of national power, what can be more important than a perfect unity in every part, in feelings and sentiments? And what can tend more powerfully to produce it, than overcoming the effects of distance? No 5 country, enjoying freedom, ever occupied anything like as great an extent of country as this republic. One hundred years ago, the most profound philosophers did not believe it to be even possible. They did not suppose it possible, that a pure republic could exist on as great a scale, even 10 as the island of Great Britain.

What then was considered as chimerical, we have now the felicity to enjoy; and what is most remarkable, such is the happy mould of our government, so well are the state and general powers blended, that much of our politi15 cal happiness draws its origin from the extent of our republic. It has exempted us from most of the causes which distracted the small republics of antiquity. Let it not, however, be forgotten, let it be forever kept in mind, that it exposes us to the greatest of all calamities,-next 20 to the loss of liberty, and even to that in its consequences, -disunion.

We are great, and rapidly, I was about to say fearfully, growing. This is our pride and our danger, our weakness and our strength. Little does he deserve to be 25 intrusted with the liberties of this people, who does not raise his mind to these truths. We are under the most imperious obligations to counteract every tendency to disunion. The strongest of all cement, is, undoubtedly, the wisdom, justice, and, above all, the moderation of this 30 House; yet the great subject on which we are now deliberating, in this respect, deserves the most serious consideration.

Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, the centre of the republic, weakens the union. The 35 more enlarged the sphere of cor mercial circulation, the more extended that of social intercourse; the more strongly we are bound together, the more inseparable are our destinies. Those who understand the human heart best, know how powerfully distance tends to break the 40 sympathies of our nature. Nothing, not even dissimilarity of language, tends more to estrange man from man. Let us, then, bind the republic together, with a perfect