3.

4.

There in the sunlight; cots, and villages,

Turrets, and towers, and temples,- dwell these there, Glowing with beauty!

Wilderness and wild,

Heaving and rolling their green tops, and ringing
With the glad notes of myriad-colored birds
Singing of happiness,- have they these there?
Spread such bright plains there to the admiring eye,
Veined by glad brooks? Waves, spreading sheets,
That mirror the white clouds, and moon, and stars,
Making a mimic heaven? Streams, mighty streams!
Waters, resistless floods! that, rolling on,

Gather like seas, and heave their waves about,
Mocking the tempest? Ocean! those vast tides
Tumbling about the globe with a wild roar
From age to age?

And tell us do those worlds

Change like our own?

Comes there the merry spring,

Soft and sweet-voiced; and, in its hands, the wreath.
Of leaves to deck the forest? Have they the months
Of the full summer, with its skies, and clouds,
And suns, and showers, and soothing fragrance sent
Up from a thousand tubes? And autumn, too,
Pensive and pale, - do these sweet days come there
Wreathing the wilderness with such gay bands
Of brightness and of beauty? And, sublime,
Within his grasp the whirlwinds, and his brows
White with the storms of ages, and his breath
Fettering the streams, and ribbing the old hills
With ice, and sleet, and snow; and, far along
The sounding ocean's side, his frosty chains
Flinging, till the wild waves grow mute, or mutter,

Grasping and great like ours? and reaching souls,
That, spurning their prison, burst away, and soar
Up to a mightier converse, than the rounds
Of a dull, daily being False, false, all!
And vain the wing of fancy to explore

The track of angels! Vain thought, to fold back
This gorgeous canopy, and send the eye
On to those realms of glory! - Mighty One!
Thou who hast power o'er all! thou hast alone
Wrapped in thine own immensity, the power,
To paint a leaf, or roll ten thousand worlds
Around the universe!

LESSON LXXXIX.

NEW YORK AS IT ONCE WAS.-BANCROFT.

[The pupil may determine the character of the language or style of this piece, and note the succession of particulars and tell how they should be read.]

1. Somber forests shed a melancholy grandeur over the useless magnificence of nature, and hid in their deep shades the rich soil which the sun had never warmed. No ax had leveled the giant progeny of the crowded groves, in which the fantas tic forms of withered limbs, that had been blasted and riven by lightning, contrasted strangely with the verdant freshness of a younger growth of branches. The wanton grape-vine,

seeming by its own power to have sprung from the earth, and to have fastened its leafy coils on the top of the tallest

forest-tree, swung in the air with every breeze, like the loosened shrouds of a ship.

2. The spotted deer crouched among the thickets; but not to hide, for there was no pursuer; and there were none but wild animals to crop the uncut herbage of the productive prairies. Silence reigned, unbroken, it may have been, by the flight of land-birds, or the flapping of water-fowl, and rendered more dismal by the howl of wild beasts.

3. Man, then the occupant of the soil, was wild as the savage scene; in harmony with the rude nature by which he was surrounded; a vagrant over the continent; in constant warfare with his fellow-man; the bark of the birch his canoe; strings of shells his ornaments, his record, and his coin; the roots of the forest among his resources of food; and his knowledge of architecture, surpassed, both in strength and durability, by the skill of the beaver.

4. But how changed is the scene from that on which Hudson a gazed! The earth now glows with the colors of civilization; the banks of the streams are enameled with richest grasses; wood-lands and cultivated fields are harmoniously blended; the birds of spring find their delight in orchards and trim gardens, variegated with choicest plants from every temperate zone; while the brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the green-house and the saloon.

5. And man is still in harmony with nature, which he has subdued, cultivated, and adorned. For him, the rivers that flow to the remotest climes mingle their waters; for him, the lakes gain new outlets to the ocean; for him, the arch spans the flood, and science spreads iron pathways to the recent wilderness; for him, the hills yield up the shining marble and the enduring

Hudson, (Henry,) an eminent English navigator, who discovered the bay and iver called Hudson's bay, and Hudson river. He is supposed to have perished at sea, in 1611

granite; for him, the forests of the interior come down in immenee rafts; for him, the marts of the city gather the produce of every clime; and libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.

6. The passions of society are chastened into purity; manners are made benevolent by civilization; and the virtue of the country is the guardian of its peace. Science investigates the powers of every plant and mineral, to find medicines for disease; schools of surgery rival the establishments of the old world. An active daily press, vigilant from party interests, free even to dissoluteness, watches the progress of society, and communicates every fact that can interest humanity; the genius of letters begins to unfold his powers in the warm sunshine of public favor. And while idle curiosity may take its walk in shady avenues by the ocean side, commerce pushes its wharves into the sea, blocks up the wide rivers with its fleets, and, sending its ships, the pride of naval architecture, to every clime, defies every wind, rides out every tempest, and invades every

zone.

.

LESSON XC.

PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.- NORTHERN LIGHT.

1. Thebesa and Carthage,b the rich capitals of once powerful empires, whose splendor and magnificence was the admiration of the world, are now no more. The pyramids of Egypt, the ruins of Thebes, the temples of Central America, are all mementos of the power and grandeur of races long since extin guished. They reared monuments, which, in their vain imagi nations they believed would endure through time, and inscribed

Thebes, a city of ancient Egypt, on the Nile, noted for its splendid ruins. b Carthage, see p. 267. • Egypt, a country in the north-east part of Africa, the cradle of the arts and sciences.

thereon the record of deeds they supposed would be remembered forever; but their posterity, for whose wonder and admiration they were erected, are unmindful of their renown, and ignorant of their achievements. History is unaware of their existence; by the world they are forgotten; and they are rescued only from total oblivion by the researches of the antiquary. 2. At this time, the race to which we belong was ignorant, degraded, and despised. We can look back and see our fathers worshiping the sun, and offering human beings upon the altar, as a propitiation to the gods. Even then, in some countries, were the blessings of civilization diffused, the arts flourishing, and man refined and elevated. But now how changed! Darkness covers those lands, and thick darkness, the people. Rudeness and ignorance have usurped the place of polished refinement; and the descendants of the wise and virtuous have sunk perhaps to rise no more.

с

3. History informs us that the Assyrians, Persians,b Phoe nicians, and others, had acquired, at a very remote period, many of the arts pertaining to civilization, and were, in every thing that tends to the promotion of good order and the elevation of mankind, immensely in advance of the western nations at that time. It is true they were continually at war with the neighboring states; but then civilization was in its first dawn; they were destitute of the experience we possess, and enjoyed not the light which beams upon us.

4. This sun, at length, in its onward course, sheds its invigorating rays upon the country of Greece. It passed along, increasing continually in power and brilliancy, until upon its

Assyrians, people of Assyria, an ancient kingdom of Asia, once of great renown. Persians, inhabitants of Persia, a country in the western part of Asia; the second universal empire of the world. Phoenicians, the people of Phonecia, on the east of the Mediterranean sea They were the first commercial nation of which we have any knowledge. Greece, anciently included what is now modern Greece, and a part of Turkey. In 332, B. C., it was the third universal empire in the world.