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When my short destin'd course on earth is o'er,
And I must hail thy much-lov'd shade no more?
Thou too, fair tree, although indulg'd by fate
With lengthen'd life beyond the human date,
Though warm with suns, and rich with fostering dews,
Returning spring thy annual green renews,

The time must come when thou shalt waste away,
And that strong frame, like this frail flesh, decay;
When spring shall never clothe thy boughs again,
And suns shall rise and dews descend in vain.
E'en while the canker'd tooth of Time would spare,
Perhaps, for sordid gain, some wasteful heir,
Whose untaught mind intent on lowly views,
Ne'er felt the raptures of the heavenly Muse,
While all the feather'd songsters mourn around,
With cruel steel thy stately trunk shall wound,
And spread thy blooming honours on the ground;
Thenceforth condemn'd along the miry road

To creak and groan beneath some cumb'rous load.

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E'en then, some gentle breast that comes this way
Shall stop, and view thy vacant place, and say,
'An ancient man, his name I have forgot,
'Oft-times resorted to this favourite spot,

' And spent whole hours beneath a linden tree;
The mark where once it grew you still may see;
And thus he sung; "When gay ambition led
"My wandering steps her slippery paths to tread
"Through toilsome years, what numerous ills I bore,
"From storms at sea, and dangers on the shore?
"On the cold ground I snatch'd a short repose;
"The summer scorch'd me, and the winter froze;
"And death in various forms his terrors spread,
"The rage of battle thundering round my head.
"Go now, fond man! compute thy mighty gains;
"Bring home the harvest reap'd with so much pains.
"Oh years ill-spent! O vainest of mankind,

"To sow the barren sands, and reap the wind! "Here threats no danger; here no cares molest;

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"My gentle sovereign, in these peaceful shades,
"Reigns without force, and without speech persuades:
"While taught." But, ah! I've now forgot the rhimes
'I learn'd with so much care in former times;
And oft have sung them all the livelong day;
'But years have worn their traces much away,
And in my memory nothing now remains
'But some half periods, some imperfect strains.`
What can resist a change from length of days,
< Since e'en the vigour of the mind decays?'

Remarks concerning the Savages of North America. The following observations were communicated by a nobleman who is not lefs distinguished as a patron of literature than for his knowledge of the relative interests of nations, and the circumstances that promote the comforts of domestic life. This paper will afford an excellent specimen of his judgment in selecting persons who are capable of giving a discriminative view of the objects they contemplate. Had we notices of all different nations, done with the same perceptive discrimination as those of this writer or Gorani, we might be almost contented with travelling in our elbow chair. The Editor considers himself much obliged by this communication, and would be happy if he could find many

such.

SAVAGES we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility. They think the same of ours.

Perhaps, if we could examine the different manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude as to be without any rules of politenefs, nor any so polite as not to have some remains of rudeness.

The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, counsellors; for all their governmen

is by counsel of the sages. There is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory, the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they deem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and uselefs. An instance of this occurred at the treaty of Lancaster in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal businefs was settled, the commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a speech, that there was at Williamsburg a college, with a fund for educating Indian youth; and that if the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their young lads to that college, the government would take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the learning of the white people. It is one of the Indian rules of politenefs, not to answer a public proposition the same day that it is made; they think that it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it respect by taking time to consider it, as of a matter that is important. They therefore deferred their answer till the day following; when their speaker began by exprefsing their deep sense of the kindness of the Virginia government in

"that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men while with you would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amifs if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad runners; ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy; spoke our language imperfectly, and were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counsellors; they were, in short, good for nothing. We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make MEN of them."

Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The businefs of the women is to take exact notice of what pafses, imprint it in their memories (for they have no writing) and communicate VOL. III. X

it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve traditions of the stipulations in treaties one hundred years back, which, when we compare them with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished and sits down, they leave him five or six minutes to recollect; that if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is

from the conduct of a polite British house of commons, where scarcely a day passes without some confusion, that makes the Speaker hoarse in calling to order; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies of Europe, where, you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it!

if

The politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excefs, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is afserted in their presence. By this means indeed they avoid dispute; but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what imprefsion you make upon them. The missionaries who have attempted to convert them to christianity all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their mifsion. The Indians hear with patience the truths of the gospel explained to them, and give their usual tokens of afsent and approbation: