ples were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded,-beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or a single state, but by all the families of man,-ascends the colossal grandeur of the character, and life of WASHINGTON. In all the

constituents of the one-in all the acts of the otherin all its titles to immortal love, admiration and renown-it is an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our trans-Atlantic liberty. Born upon our soil-of parents also born upon itnever for a moment having had sight of the old world -instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge, which our institutions provide for the children of the people-growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society-living from infancy to manhood, and age, amidst our expanding, but not luxurious, civilization-partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man-our agony of glory, the war of Independence-our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union and the establishment of the Constitution he is all-all our own!

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of the state, in the midst of the reproachings of enemies and the misgiving of friendsI turn to the transcendant name for courage, and for consolation. To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with the pursuits and advancement of happiness-to him who denies that our institutions are capable of producing exaltation of soul and the passion of true glory-to him who denies that we have contributed any thing to the stock of great

lessons and great examples-to all these I reply by pointing to WASHINGTON!

And now, friends and fellow-citizens, it is time to bring this discourse to a close.

We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes of the future. But let us remember, that we have duties and obligations to perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we have received from our fathers. Let us feel our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of our institutions of civil and religious liberty. And let us remember, that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy under any form of government; let us hold fast to the great truth, that communities are responsible as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity and honor-no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved future. And when we, and our children, shall all have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country, and pride of country, glow with equal fervor among

those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended. And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this Monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected— there shall rise, from every youthful breast, the ejaculation "THANK GOD, I—I ALSO—AM AN AMERICAN.”

LESSON CXLIV.

THE FAMILY MEETING.

The following beautiful tribute to the family circle has as much truth as poetry in it. The pupil must endeavor to do justice to the first and last line of each stanza, and the italic type may help him. The author is CHARLES SPRAGUE, of Boston.

We are all here!

Father, Mother,

Sister, Brother,

All who hold each other dear.

Each chair is filled-we're all at home:
To-night let no cold stranger come:
It is not often thus around

Our old familiar hearth we're found;
Bless the meeting and the spot!
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all-all here.

We're not all here!

Some are away!—the dead ones dear,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in and thinned our little band:
Some like a night-flash passed away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet graveyard-some lie there—
The cruel ocean has his share-
We're not all here.

We are all here!

Even they-the dead-though dead, so dear;
Fond memory, to her duty true,

Brings back their faded forms to view,

How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well-remembered face appears!
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old—
We are all here.

We are all here!
Father, Mother,

Sister, Brother,

You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said;
Soon must we join the gathered dead;
And by the hearth we sit not round,
Some other circle will be found.
Oh! then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below;
So, in the world to follow this
May each repeat, in words of bliss,
We are all-all here!

LESSON CXLV.

THE DAYS OF OLD ROMANCE.

The pupil who would understand what is meant by the Days of Old Romance, may read Walter Scott's Tales of the Crusaders, James's History of Chivalry, or Don Quixotte, which last, though a Satire upon chivalry, gives a lively picture of its usages and its abuses. The author of the following lines is unknown to the editor. In the word chivalry, ch is not pronounced like sh.

O, for the glorious days of yore
For the days of old romance!
When there were knights in armor clad,
With shield and sword and lance.

I'm sick of men with beaver hats

And coats of black or blue,

O, for the days of chivalry,

And their mail-clad heroes too.

It must have been a charming thing
To dwell in a castle high,

With a draw bridge over a deep, dark moat,
And a turret against the sky.

I'd have had a glorious war steed too,
And gallopped about so bold,
And many a foe I'd have vanquished
As did the knights of old.

I'm sick of everything I see,
And tired of all I meet;

Of houses standing in long straight rows,
And chimneys all down the street.
O, for the glorious days of yore,

For the days of chivalry;

Would I had lived in those happy times,
For they were times for me.

LESSON CXLVI.

THE DYING WARRIOR.

"Le Chevalier sans peur and sans reproche, the knight without fear and without reproach," was the title of Bayard, a French knight in the reign of Francis I. who was as distinguished for his unblemished morals as for his unfailing courage. Being mortally wounded in a retreat, he ordered his face to be turned towards the enemy while be was dying. The poet probably did not intend to describe the manner of Bayard's death, although the borrowing of his title would seem to indicate such an intention. The author is G. M. SNOW.

"Oh! place me on my old war horse,

And place my spear in rest;

And gird the spur upon my heel,

The corslet on my breast:

I would don my harness once again,

I would ride one more career-
For I love the wail of the stirring trump,
The glaive, and the oaken spear.