do justice to us all. The man who comes fairly before the world, and who possesses the great and vigorous stamina which entitle him to a niche in the temple of glory, has no reason to dread the ultimate result ;however slow his progress may be, he will, in the end most indubitably receive that distinction. While the rest," the swallows of science,” the butterflies of genius may flutter for their spring; but they will soon pass away and be remembered no more. No enterprizing man, therefore, (and, least of all, the truly great man) has reason to droop, or repine at any ef forts which he may suppose to be made with a view to depress him; since he may rely on the universal and unchanging truth, that talents, which are before the world, will most inevitably find their proper level ;and this is certainly all that a just man should desire. Let then, the tempest of envy or malice howl around him. His genius will consecrate him; and any attempt to extinguish that, will be as unavailing as would a human effort to "quench the stars."

MEANS OF PERPETUATING THE MEMORY OF THE IL

LUSTRIOUS.

The magnificent structures, raised by the gratitude of mankind to their benefactors of old, had but a local and temporary use. They were beheld only by one people and for a few ages.

The heaven aspiring pyramid, the proud
Triumphal arch, and all that are upheld
The worshipp'd name of hoar antiquity,
Are moulding into dust.

In vain does the way-faring man investigate the tottering ruins for the divinity once enshrined there !— a scanty receptacle, about six feet in length and half the breadth, informs him that it once contained some human dust, long since mingled with the common mass. In vain does the prying antiquary dwell upon the sculpture, or strive to collect and spel! the scatter

ed fragments of letters. The inscription is gonelong since gone, effaced, obliterated! and fruitless were the search through the whole world for the hero's name, if it were not recorded in the Orator's page, and proclaimed by the faithful voice of history.

There it shall live, while the smallest vestiges of literature remail: upon earth-yea, till the final dissolution of things human; nor shall it perish then; but being the immediate care of heaven, the great archangel when he sweeps suns and systems from their place, and kindles up their last fires, stretching forth his mighty arm, shall pluck the deathless scroll from the devouring conflagration, and give it a place among the archives of eternity.

HAPPINESS.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows; in short, it feels every thing it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and speciaOn the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive any satisfaction from the applauses she gives herself, but from the admiration she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and assemblies, and has no existence, but when she is an object of public attention.

tors.

NATIONAL PRIDE.

Of all the ingredients (and they are both numerous and varied) that enter into the composition of national character, there is, perhaps, none more interesting, or more extensively, or importantly operative, pone

that can be turned to a higher account, than a well regulated principle of national pride. This principle is so nearly allied to the love of country, that it might almost be regarded as another name for that virtuous attachment. No man can sincerely love his country, without being proud of his country, no man can sincerely love his fellow-citizens, without being proud of his fellow-citizens, no man can love the constitution, laws, and government under which he lives, without being proud of these national compacts. So necessarily does a sentiment of national pride grow out of, and identify itself with a sentiment of affection.

It is not alone on the man of the sword-the man to whom the battles of his country are entrusted -that national pride is powerfully operative. Its agency, confined to no class or description of society, is bounded only by the limits of the state. From the chief magistrate himself, whether he be styled emperor, king, sultan or president, down to the lowest of his subjects, vassals or fellow citizens, it shoots its all pervasive influence. It gives dignity and force to the pen of the historian, renders the inspiration of the poet more divine, and touches with brighter fire the orator's resistless tongue. It electrifies the soul, fortifies the mind, and sublimes the patriotism of the husbandman at his plough, or, the mechanic in his workshop, no less than of the minister in his cabinet, or the sen ator in his council chamber. It is a great, diffusive sympathetic principle, which quickens, allies, and converts into an unit the whole mass of national population. It is thus that the nation gains confidence in itself, becomes happy and exalted in peace, and formidable, if not invincible in war.

But unless we are taught to regard our country, its inhabitants, and all that belongs to it, in a dignified and honorable point of view, the sentiment of national pride can never spring up, or springing up, must prematurely wither in our bosoms. As we cannot love deformity nor esteem those that are habitually depraved, so neither can we be proud of that which is ignoble and degraded. The individual who can believe

his country, no matter whether his belief be true or false, to be inferior to the surrounding countries of the globe, must immediately divest himself of national pride, and with it must also resign a certain portion of personal dignity and self-respect.

Could we, contrary to the testimony of nature herself, as conveyed to our mind through the medium of our senses, be induced to give credit to the representations of European philosophers, statesmen, and tourists, how could we as Americans, be proud of our country? How could we even escape the lowest depth of mortification and self-abasement? These writers, particularly the latter class of them, declare us to be, in all things, degraded below the level of the human standard, inferior in personal comeliness and strength, wanting in courage and manliness of spirit, deficient x in the natural endowments of the mind, in morality,. in education, in the virtues of the individual, in social qualities and in all the amiable charities of the heart. Nor is this all, even of our country itself, they give pictures that are now humiliating and disgusting, now hideous and frightful. Our climate, they declare to be constantly torn to pieces by fierce and militant extremes, at one time insufferably hot, again, in quick. succession tormentingly cold, now arid as Arabia itself, then inundated by torrents of rain, now marked by a sultry and suffocating calm, anon by the most wild and destructive conflict of the elements. In the dismal catalogue of our natural evils, pestilence is admitted to a distinguished place. Our forests are represented as infested by ravenous and ferocious beasts of prey, at mortal enmity with the life of man, the earth as haunted by hordes of serpents ready to infuse into him their deadly poison, and the atmosphere as abounding with myriads of loathsome and venomous. insects, whose stings, bites, and annoyance, swell discomfort even to torture. Add to these, a soil fertile in noxious and unsightly weeds, but niggardly in the production of all that is pleasing and profitable, rivers peopled only by water-serpents and frogs, crocodiles and alligators; here tracts of burning sand, where no

verdure springs to relieve the eye of the traveller, nor does a fountain break forth to extinguish his thirst; there interminable swamps and marshes, the abode of dangerous and offensive reptiles, and fruitful in nothing but the seeds of disease. Add these and a few other features ignoble and rude, disgusting and terrific, and you have a faint outline, of an European picture of nature in America.

And strange as it must seem, it is true, that so familiar are we grown with these insulting and malicious fictions, these slanders on ourselves and on nature around us, as not only to tolerate them, but even to admit that they are partially true, that they are, at least, more applicable to the state and condition of things in America, than they are in any of the countries of Europe. We repeat, and we experience a blush of shame mingled with indignation, in making the repetition, that so familiar are Americans grown with the story of their own disgrace, as almost to sit down contented and fancy themselves disgraceful.-They do not, with that respect which is due to themselves, with that spirit and dignity which the occasion demands, resent and spurn from them, the taunts and jeers that are thrown on them from abroad. A state of things this, tending to the subversion of national pride, national spirit, and every thing that can give us weight and character as a people, tending to destroy our happiness. and security at home, and render us an object for the scorn of foreign nations to point her" slow unmoving finger at."

Under these circumstances it is high time for Americans to awake from their lethargy, it is time for our literary characters, in particular (of whom, as will hereafter appear, we have a phalanx, numerous and refined, brilliant and powerful) to put forth their might, and vindicate their own and their country's reputation. It is time for them to convince foreigners who want information, and such of their fellowcitizens as are wavering in their opinions, that we are not, as represented, a degraded and uncharacterized people,—but that, on the other hand, we possess our