4. Oh, no, my child; when trials rise, 5. Should foes obstruct thy path, my son, LESSON CXVIII, Extract from an Oration on the Virtues of General Washington, pronounced the 8th of February, 1800. 1. It is natural that the gratitude of mankind should be drawn to their benefactors. A number of these have successively arisen, who were no less distinguished for the elevation of their virtues than the lustre of their talents. Of those, however, who were born, and who acted through life as if they were born not for themselves, but for their country and the whole human race, how few are recorded in the long annals of ages, and how wide the intervals of time and space that divide them. 2. In all this dreary length of way, they appear like five or six lighthouses on as many thousand miles of coast; they gleam upon the surrounding darkness with an inextinguishable splendour, like stars seen through a mist; but they are seen like stars, to cheer, to guide, and to save. 3. Washington is now added to that small number. Already he attracts curiosity, like a newly discovered star, whose be nignant light will travel on to the world's and time's farthest bounds. Already his name is hung up by history as conspicuously as if it sparkled in one of the constellations of the sky. 4. By commemorating his death, we are called this day to yield the homage that is due to his virtue; to confess the common debt of mankind as well as our own; and to pronounce for posterity, now dumb, that eulogium, which they will delight to echo ten ages hence when we are dumb, 5. The unambitious life of Washington, declining fame, yet courted by it, seemed, like his own Potomack, widening and deepening his channel, as he approaches the sea, and displaying most the usefulness and serenity of his greatness toward the end of his course. country. Such a citizen would do honour to any 6. The constant veneration and affection of his country will show that it was worthy of such a citizen. However his military fame may excite the wonder of mankind, it is chiefly by his civil magistracy that his example will instruct them. Great generals have arisen in all ages of the world, and, perhaps, most in those of despotism and darkness. 7. In times of violence and convulsion, they rise, by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in it, and direct the storm. Like meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a splendour, that, while it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the darkness. The fame of heroes is, indeed, growing vulgar! They multiply in every long war! They stand in history, and thicken in their ranks, almost as undistinguished as their own soldiers. 8. But such a chief magistrate as Washington, appears like the polestar in a clear sky, to direct the skilful statesman. His presidency will form an epoch, and be distinguished as the age of Washington. Already it assumes its high place in the political region. Like the milky way, it whitens along its allotted portion of the hemisphere. 9. The latest generations of men will survey, through the telescope of history, the space where so many virtues blend their rays, and delight to separate them into groups and distinct virtues. As the best illustration of them, the living monument, to which the first of patriots would have chosen to consign his fame, it is my earnest prayer to heaven, that our country may subsist, even to that late day, in the plenitude of its liberty and happiness, and mingle its mild glory with Washington's.-ÁMES. LESSON CXIX. On Plants. 1. PLANTS stand next to animals in the scale of existence: they are, like them, organized bodies; like them, increase by nutrition, which is conveyed through a system of tubes and fine vessels, and assimilated to their substance; like them, they propagate their race from a parent, and each seed produces its own plant; like them, they grow by insensible degrees from an infant state to full vigour, and, after a certain term of maturity, decay and die. In short, except the powers of speech and locomotion, they seem to possess every characteristick of sen tient life. 2. A plant consists of a root, a stem, leaves, and a flower or blossom. The root is bulbous, as the onion; long, like the parsnip or carrot; or branched out into threads, as the greater number are, and particularly all the large ones; a bulbous root could not support a large tree. The stem is single or branched, clinging for support, or upright, clothed with a skin or bark, 3. The flower contains the principle of reproduction, as the root does of individuality. This is the most precious part of the plant, to which every thing contributes. The root nourishes it, the stem supports, the leaves defend and shelter it; it comes forth but when nature has prepared for it by showers, and sun, and gentle, soothing warmth: colour, beauty, scent, adorn it; and when it is complete, the end of the plant's existence is answered. It fades and dies; or, if capable by its perennial nature of repeating the process, it hides in its inmost folds the precious germe of new being, and itself almost retires from existence till a new year. 4. A tree is one of the most stately and beautiful objects in God's visible creation. It does not admit of an exact definition, but is distinguished from the humbler plant by its size, the strength of its stem, which becomes a trunk, and the comparative smallness of the blossom. In the fruit trees, indeed, the number of blossoms compensates for their want of size; but in the forest-trees the flower is scarcely visible. Production seems not to be so important a process where the parent tree lives for centuries. 5. Every part of vegetables is useful. Of many the roots are edible, and the seeds are generally so; of many the leaves, as of the cabbage, spinage; the buds, as of the asparagus, cauli. flower; the bark is often employed medicinally, as the quinquina and cinnamon. 6. The trunk of a tree determines the manner of its growth, and gives firmness; the foliage serves to form one mass of a number of trees; while the distinct lines are partly seen, partly hidden. The leaves throw over the branches a rich mantle, like flowing tresses; they wave in the wind with an undulatory motion, catch the glow of the evening sun, or glitter with the rain; they shelter innumerable birds and animals, and afford variety in colours, from the bright green of spring to the varied teints of autumn. In winter, however, the form of each tree and its elegant ramifications are discerned, which were lost under the flowing robe of verdure. 7. Trees are beautiful in all combinations; the single tree is so; the clump; the grove, rising, like an amphitheatre; the flowing line that marks the skirts of the wood, and the dark, deep, boundless shade of the forest; the green line of the hedgerow, the more artificial avenue, the gothick arch of verdure, the tangled thicket. 8. Young trees are distinguished by beauty; in maturity their characteristick is strength. The ruin of a tree is venerable even when fallen: we are then more sensible of its towering height: we also observe the root, the deep fangs which held it against so many storms, and the firmness of the wood; a sentiment of pity mixes, too, with our admiration. 9. The trees in groves and woods shed a brown, religious horrour, which favoured the religion of the ancient world. Trees shelter from cutting winds and sea air; they preserve moisture; but, if too many, in their thick and heavy mass lazy vapours stagnate; their profuse perspiration is unwholesome; they shut out the golden sun and ventilating breeze. 10. It should seem as if the number of trees must have been diminished for ages, for in no cultivated country does the growth of trees equal the waste of them. A few gentlemen raise plantations, but many more cut down; and the farmer thinks not of so lofty a thing as the growth of ages. Trees are too lofty to want the hand of man. 11. The florist may mingle his tulips, and spread the paper ruff on his carnations; he may trim his mount of roses and his laurel hedge; but the lofty growth of trees soars far above him. If he presumes to fashion them with his shears, and trim them into fanciful or mathematical shapes, offended taste will mock all his improvements. Even in planting he can do little. He may succeed in fancying a clump, or laying out an avenue, and may, perhaps, gently incline the boughs to form the arch; but a forest was never planted.-MRS. BARBAULD. LESSON CXX. Importance of Science to a Practical Mechanick. 1. LET us imagine, for a moment, the condition of an individual, who has not advanced beyond the merest elements of knowledge, who understands nothing of the principles even of his own art, and inquire what change will be wrought in his feelings, his hopes, and happiness, in all that makes up the character, by the gradual inpouring of knowledge. 2. He has now the capacity of thought, but it is a barren faculty, never nourished by the food of the mind, and never rising above the poor objects of sense. Labour and rest, the hope of mere animal enjoyment, or the fear of want, the care of providing covering and food, make up the whole sum of his existence. Such a man may be industrious, but he cannot love labour, for it is not relieved by the excitement of improving or changing the processes of his art, nor cheered by the hope of a better condition. he 3. When released from labour he does not rejoice; for mere idleness is not enjoyment, and he has no book, no lesson of science, no play of the mind, no interesting pursuit, to give a zest to the hour of leisure. Home has few charms for him; has little taste for the quiet, the social converse, and exchange of feeling and thought, the innocent enjoyments that ought to dwell there. Society has little to interest him; for he has no sympathy for the pleasures or pursuits, the cares or troubles of others, to whom he cannot feel, nor perceive his bonds of relationship. 4. All of life is but a poor boon for such a man; and happy for himself, and for mankind, if the few ties that hold him to this negative existence be not broken. Happy for him if that best and surest friend of man, that messenger of good news from heaven to the poorest wretch on earth, Religion, bringing the fear of God, appear to save him. Without her to support, should temptation assail him, what an easy victim would he fall to vice or crime! How little would be necessary to overturn his ill-balanced principles, and leave him grovelling in intemperance, or send him abroad on the ocean or the highway, an enemy to himself and his kind! 5. But, let the light of science fall upon that man; open to him the fountain of knowledge. A few principles of philosophy enter his mind, and awaken the dormant power of thought. He begins to look upon his art with an altered eye. It ceases to be a dark mechanical process, which he cannot understand; he regards it as an object of inquiry, and begins to penetrate the reasons, and acquire a new mastery over his own instru ments. 6. He finds other and better modes of doing what he had done before, blindly and without interest, a thousand times. He learns to profit by the experience of others, and ventures upon untried paths. Difficulties, which before would have stopped him at the outset, receive a ready solution from some luminous principle of science. 7. He gains new knowledge and new skill, and can improve |