the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood;" that before that time, little literary labour was to be expected from the poor and hardy adventurers into an unknown land; surrounded by savage enemies; holding the plough with one hand and the musket in the other; and that since that time we have been vindicating our present rank among nations, through the agony of a revolution, and have been organizing ourselves into an empire. But the period has arrived when we must have a literature of our own. This cannot now be regarded as an ornament with which we may dispense, incurring in consequence only a little national disgrace; it must be considered as the safegud of our best principles, habits, and feelings. It should be made an object of publick and of individual interest. There is no deficiency of talents in our country; its enemies have ceased to make this reproach; and literary exertion therefore will be in proportion to its encouragement. There will be men of letters enough, when the country is ready to afford them honour and reward. The one must be provided for them; and their claim to the other must be recognised and asserted; and there must be a general feeling, that our national reputation is implicated in the reputation of our national literature. In this too, as in other things, we are in some danger from an indiscriminate admiration of what we may see in older countries. There is little reason to reform our plans of education to bring them to a nearer conformity to theirs. It is not worth while for us to adopt from them traditionary usages, which ought long since to have become obsolete; and from which it would be happy for them if they could deliver themselves. Our plans of education are suited to our necessities. They are not adapted to overburden the mind with unprofitable learning; but they are adapted to effect what ought to be the great purpose of education, to call forth, and exercise and strengthen the different faculties of the mind. Mere scholars, mere literary artisans are but an inferiour class in the republick of letters; and certainly not that, which we have most occasion for. It is quite as well, to say the least, that our manufactories of lexicons and editions of the classicks should be at Halle and Göttingen, as that our manufactories of hardware and of woollen goods should be at Birmingham and Manchester. There is even less inconvenience in the former state of things than in the latter. The literature which we want is effective, practical, useful literature, the literature of

the intellect and the heart. The men, whom we particularly need, are those, who may guide and form publick opinion and sentiment in matters of taste, in morals, in politicks, and in religion; men, who will think and write like the author of the address, which we have been reviewing. We want also those who may instruct us through the medium of our own history, and transmit it to posterity in the form in which it ought to be preserved; those who may delight us with native works of imagination and genius; and those who may extend the bounds of natural science by exploring the riches of our own country. But we do not wish merely for the encouragement of men of letters who are particularly adapted to our necessities and circumstances. We ought to rejoice in every display of intellectual superiority among us. We ought to feel it an honour to our country and to our native state, that it can boast of a mathematician (it is unnecesary to name him) who rivals the first in Europe. We ought not to be satisfied or inactive, till our country is contributing its full proportion to the treasury of the intellectual wealth of mankind.

Never in all past ages did a prospect so glorious rise to the view of any nation, as that which is disclosed to our own. Before some of those who may read what we are now writing, shall taste of death, fifty or sixty millions of men will have poured themselves over our country, carrying civilization and the arts to the extreme corner, where the last of our lakes meets the Mississippi; and making the wilderness disappear before them, and ascending and passing the Rocky Mountains, where the Missouri has its source. The character and condition of this immense multitude depend upon nothing so much as upon the principles and feelings, which may be transmitted to them from the present generation. We ought to acknowledge the debt which is due to our posterity; and to feel that there is no responsi bility more solemn, than that of those, who may in any considerable degree affect the destinies of such a people.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

Translation of the Eighth Satire of Boileau;

ON MAN.

Addressed to a Doctor of the Sorbonne.

Exactly to relish the commencement of this satire, we must imagine the author in the presence of one of the facul"ty of the Sorbonne, who is full of his conceptions of the dignity and excellence of human nature.-The Satirist may be supposed to have just drawn his hand over his face, and with a provoking solemnity, in which are still lurking the traces of a sneer, to begin thus ;

Or all the living things, which walk or creep,
Dart through the air, or cleave the liquid deep,
From Rome to Ind.(1)-from Paris to Japan,
The silliest fool, (I do conceive) is man.

Patience, what next?' some Doctor here exclaims,
'Sure you're not serious, when you call such names;
You do not mean, that worms, and ants, and flies,
The fluttering insect, that but lives and dies,
The ruminating tribe-the browsing clan-
The bull the goat-have better wits than man ?"
Yes, Doctor, that I do ;-though wild surprise
Already opes, I find, your saucer-eyes.
You say, with truth, that man is nature's king,
Lord of the fields, floods, creatures, every thing;
Reason, I grant, is his exclusive lot,

But hence I argue him that brainless sot.

Oh, very well'-you shrug your brow and say,
A paradox may answer in its way;

Such things in Satire may be worth the while

To tip a verse, or make a reader smile;

But where's the proof? that boldly I demand!'

I'm charg'd and prin'd-so, Doctor, take your stand.

(1) Ind. The reader must understand a Western Ind. Perou is the word in the original.

Say, what is Wisdom ? "Tis that equal frame,
No cares can vex-nor wild desires inflame;
Whose step right forward to its object tends,
Strait as a dean the pulpit stair ascends.
Now, of this equability of mind,

What has a scantier pittance than mankind ?
The ant each year climbs o'er the hillocks green,
And stores with grain her little magazine;
And when rude Boreas throws, with blasts that kill,
O'er nature's frame, a melancholy chill,
This tiny thing lives warm in her retreat,
Whose summer earnings make her winter sweet.
But ah! you ne'er behold her dance and skim
With strange inconstancy, from whim to whim;
You never see her lounge the Spring away,
And then go bustling on a Winter's day,
Nor rashly stare in January's face,

To droop, when Sol begins his vernal race.
How far unlike the headlong creature, Man,
Who roves unceasingly from plan to plan.
Vex'd with a thousand cares, he scarce knows what
New freak to follow, or to follow not.
The thing to-day he chooses to abbor,
That thing to-morrow he is dying for.
"What! shall I go and marry some coquette,
Unmov'd by all the insults I shall get,
And rank among those easy saints of men,

Who gain renown from Bussi's(2) blazoning pen?
No, never, there are fools enongh beside,
For the whole town to banter and deride!?
So said a marquis but one month ago,

How well, the lapse of fifteen days could show.
Caught in the snare, in spite of all his vows,
He shines the model of a loving spouse,
And thinks that some new rib has sprung
to life,
Which heaven has moulded to his faithful wife.
And such is Man-flitting from black to white,
He flouts at morning what he holds at night,
A pest to others, to himself a load,

He shifts his mind each minute like a mode

Sport of a breeze, by every ripple sunk,
This day a hero, and the next a monk.

e;

(2) Bussi, in his history of gallantry,' enumerates many very criminal affairs of married ladies about the court.

Whilst thus his brains in vapoury follies steep,
And cradled in chimeras, sink to sleep,
He feels himself the prop of nature's throne,
And the tenth heaven revolves for him alone.
He is the lord of all beneath the sky-

And who denies it?' would you think it ?—I.
But without asking now, which lord can scare
Each other most, the traveller, or the bear,
Or whether, should the Nubian hinds decree
That Barca's lions must from Lybia flee,
The trembling brutes would scamper for their life,
I'll put one question, which shall end the strife.
This would-be tyrant of the earth and sea-
This lord of all-how many lords has he?
Ambition, avarice, desire, and hate,
Inflict a worse than galley rower's fate.
Scarcely has sleep o'erspread his weary eyes-
Up, up,' says Avarice, tis time to rise."

6

"Wait-oh! No, up!" One moment let me stay,
The shops as yet are shut-'tis scarcely day.'
"No matter, rise!' What would you have me do ?'
Why scour each sea and ocean through and through,
E'en to Japan for clay and amber roam,
And bring from Goa spice and ginger home.'
But why on traffick would you have me bent,
When I've enough to make my heart content ?'
'You cannot have too much-still grasp at more,
Though crime and perjury should swell the store.
If hunger gnaw-forbid your stomach bread,
And be content to make the ground your bed.
Drive from your house each article of cost,
Though you've more wealth than ever Galet(3) lost.
E'en while your granaries are fill'd with wheat,
rye and barley all you dare to eat.
And rather than behold one farthing fly,
Make up your wise and prudent mind to die.'
But why indulge this suicidal care ?'

6

Be

Why? to be sure, for some ungrateful heir,
Whose costly wardrobe, and luxurious board
Shall drain the wealth, which you so fondly stor❜d,
And with his equipage confuse the town ;-
Come, come, the sailors wait, so haste ye down.'
Or, should he rise beyond the love of gain,
Perhaps ambition, with her gorgeous train

(3) A famous gamester.