"Roused man from his miserable sloth,
His faculties unfolded, pointed out
Where lavish Nature the directing hand
Of Art demanded, showed him how to raise
His feeble force by the mechanic powers,
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth,
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire,
On what the torrent and the gathered blast,
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe,
Taught him to chip the wood and hew the stone,
Till by degrees the finished fabric rose;
Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur,
And wrapped him in the woolly vestments warm
Nor stopped at barren, bare necessity,
But, still advancing bolder, led him on
To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace,
And, breathing high ambition in his soul,
Set science, wisdom, glory in his view,
And bade him be the lord of all below "

Such in the language, but without any of the exaggeration of poetry, are the magnificent results of intelligent industry, of the hand executing what the mind has devised or discovered; either of them, without the other, being powerless to any greatly useful end. The mind, without the hand, must be compelled to waste its force upon barren speculation, or to` amuse itself with the fleeting visions of fancy. The hand, without the guiding mind, is bloody and dangerous, quick to injury, slow and awkward in any work of peace. Let them act together in intelligent unison, and then the whole man and the whole frame of society will move together, in cheerful activity, right onward to their highest possible perfection and happiness..

It is the boast of our own country, and times, and civil condition, that they are all auspicious to this union and the attainment of these ends. To coöperate to the best of his ability in securing and hastening forward this excellent and beneficent effect, and especially to make its blessings more immediately felt by those around and about him, is at once the duty of every good citizen, and his most exalted privilege

G. C. VERPLANK.

James Montgomery, a religious poet of deservedly high reputation, Was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, in 1771, and was educated at the Moravian School. A tone of generous and enlightened morality pervades all his writings. His fame was long confined to what is termed the religious world, till he showed, by his cultivation of different styles of poetry, that his depth and sincerity of feeling, the simplicity of his taste, and the picturesque beauty of his language, were not restricted to purely spiritual

themes. His smaller poems enjoy a popularity almost equal to those of Moore, which, though differing widely in subject, they resemble in their musical flow, and their compendious, happy expression and imagery.

Cyclopædia Eng. Lit.

14. Practice and Habit.

We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of any thing such, at least, as would carry us farther than can be easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection.

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancingmaster, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were, naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice, to attain but some degrees of a like ability.

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What incredible and astonishing actions do we find ropedancers and tumblers bring their bodies to! Not but that sundry, in almost all manual arts, are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of as such, because, on that very account, money is given to see them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men, whose bodies have noth ing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers-on.

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes. it what it is; and most, even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions.

Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery, others for apologues and apposite, diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and those who excel in either of them, never purposely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learned. But yet it is true, that at first some lucky hit, which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice.

I do not deny that natural disposition may very frequently give rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of cultivation.

To what purpose all this, but to show that the difference so observable in men's understanding and parts, does not arise so much from the natural faculties, as acquired habits? He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have muc better success, who shall endeavor at that age to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory.

Nobody is made any thing by hearing rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician, extempore, by merely lecturing upon the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of rules, rules, showing him wherein right reason consists.

This being so, that defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from the want of a right use of their own minds, I am apt to think the fault

is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them. We see men frequently dexterous and sharp enough in making a bargain, who, if you reason with them about matters of religion, appear perfectly stupid.

JOHN LOCKE

15. Pleasures of Memory.

SWEET Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail
To view the haunts of long-lost hours,
Blessed with far greener shades, far fresher bowers
When joy's bright sun has shed his evening ray,
And hope's delusive meteors cease to play,
When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close,
Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows;
Like yon fair orb she gilds the brow of night
With the mild magic of reflected light.

And who can tell the triumphs of the mind
By truth illumined and by taste refined?
When age has quenched the eye and closed the ear,
Still nerved for action in her native sphere,
Oft will she rise, with searching glance pursue
Some long-loved image vanished from her view,
Dart through the deep recesses of the past
O'er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast,
With giant grasp fling back the folds of night,
And snatch the faithless fugitive to light.

Hail, Memory, hail! In thy exhaustless mine
From age to age, unnumbered glories shine.
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And place and time are subject to thy sway.
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone -
The only pleasures we can call our own.