lay nearest and heaviest upon that noble heart; and ifwhich Heaven forbid - the day shall ever arrive when his parting counsels on that head shall be forgotten, on that day, come it soon or come it late, it may as mournfully as truly be said that Washington has lived in vain. Then the vessels as they ascend and descend the Potomac may toll their bells with new significance as they pass Mount Vernon; they will strike the requiem of constitutional liberty for us,- for all nations.

4. But it cannot, shall not be; this great woe to our beloved country, this catastrophe for the cause of national freedom, this grievous calamity for the whole civilized world, it cannot, shall not be. No, by the glorious 19th of April, 1775; no, by the precious blood of Bunker Hill, of Princeton, of Saratoga; of King's Mountain, of Yorktown; no, by the undying spirit of '76; no, by the sacred dust enshrined at Mount Vernon; no, by the dear immortal memory of Washington,― that sorrow and shame shall never be.

5. A great and venerated character like that of Washington, which commands the respect of an entire population, however divided on other questions, is not an isolated fact in history to be regarded with barren admiration, it is a dispensation of Providence for good. It was well said by Mr. Jefferson, in 1792, writing to Washington to dissuade him from declining a renomination: "North and South will hang together while they have you to hang to." Washington in the flesh is taken from us; we shall never behold him as our fathers did; but his memory remains, and I say, let us hang to his memory. Let us make a national festival and holiday of his birthday; and ever, as the 22d of February returns, let us remember that, while with these solemn and joyous rites of observance we celebrate the great anniversary, our fellow-citizens on the Hudson, on the Potomac, from the Southern plains to the Western

lakes, are engaged in the same offices of gratitude and love.

6. Nor we, nor they alone; - beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along that stupendous trail of immigra tion from East to West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is already threading the Western prairies, swarming through the portals of the Rocky Mountains and winding down their slopes, the name and the memory of Washington on that gracious night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the golden gate of California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian stars. There and there only, in barbarous Archipelagoes, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is unknown, and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to his memory.-E. Everett.

STUDIES

LESSON 137.

ON STUDIES.

serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in the quiet of private life; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.

2. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for

natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

3. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and to confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

4. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

5. Reading maketh a full man; conversation a ready man; and writing an exact man: and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know what he doth not.

6. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Indeed, there is no stand or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may, by appropriate exercises.

7. Bowling is good for the back; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head and the like; so, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for, in demonstrations, if his wits be called away never so little, he must begin again.

8. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the disputations of the schoolmen; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases; so every defect of the mind. may have a special receipt. — Francis Bacon.

I

LESSON 138.

DARKNESS.

HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions, in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light.

2.

And they did live by watch-fires; and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings, the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes and their mountain torch.

3.

A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire; but, hour by hour,
They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks

Extinguish'd with a crash; and all was black.
The brows of men, by the unearthly light,
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down,
And hid their eyes, and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again,
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth, and howl'd.

4.

The wild birds shriek'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came, tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless: they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; a meal was bought
With blood, and each sat sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom; no love was left;
All earth was but one thought, and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails; men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh.

5.

The meager by the meager were devour'd;
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds, and beasts, and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead