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hundred years before the histories of Herodotus were written, contributed largely to mould the public mind of Greece. Euripides was a poet, and his glorious works shed an imperishable halo over his once happy and beautiful, but now fallen and desolate country. Virgil was a poet, the immortalizer of rural life; and Hesperides, Tempe's Valley, and Arcadia linger with those who read him. And Shakspeare, whose works-a bible of the mind-are an unfailing source of human knowledge. In the words of Jonson, "He was not for a day, but for all time.”

Poets have ever been the great civilizers of mankind. Poets have ever been the pioneers in human freedom. To prince and peasant, in cottage and hall, their songs have brought social happiness or sweetest consolation. As memorials of the past, venerated; as prophecies of the future, revered; they count the tears, they tell the sorrows, they number the joys, they cherish the remembrances, and they soothe the passions of the great brotherhood of the world. They breathe the matins over our cradles, the Te Deums of our manhood, and the vespers of our graves. Where soug sleeps, patriotism fades away, nationality declines; but where it wakes, like the strains of Memnon of old, it tells of the sunrise of a nation's glory.

LXXXVII-THE MILITIA GENERAL AND HIS FORCES.

THOMAS CORWIN.

Now the gentleman, being a militia general, as he has told us, his brother officers, in that simple statement has revealed the glorious history of toils, privations, sacrifices, and, bloody scenes through which we know, from experience and observation, a militia officer in time of peace is sure to pass. We all, in fancy, now see the gentleman in that most dangerous and glorious event in the life of a militia general on the peace establishment-a parade-day-The day, for which all the other days of his life seem to have been made. We can see the troops in motion; umbrellas, hoe and axe handles, and other deadly implements of war, overshadowing all the field, when lo! the leader of the host approaches,

his plume, white, after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of ample length, and reads its doleful history in the bereaved necks and bosoms of forty neighboring hen-roosts! Like the great Suwarow, he seems somewhat careless in forms and points of dress; hence his epaulettes may be on his shoulders, back or sides, but still gleaming, gloriously gleaming in the sun. Mounted he is, too, let it not be forgotten. Need I describe to the colonels and generals of this honorable house, the steed which heroes bestride on such occasions? No, I see the memory of other days is with you. You see before you the gentleman mounted on his crop-eared, bushytailed mare, the singular obliquity of whose hind limbs is described by that most expressive phrase, "sickle hams" -her height just fourteen hands, "all told;" yes, sir, there you see his "steed that laughs at the shaking of the spear;" that is, his "war-horse whose neck is clothed with thunder." We have glowing descriptions in history of Alexander the Great and his war-horse Bucephalus, at the head of the invincible Macedonian phalanx, but, sir, such are the improvements of modern times, that every one must see that our militia general, with his crop-eared mare, with bushy tail and sickle hams, would literally frighten off the battle-field an hundred Alexanders. But, sir, to the history of the parade-day. The general thus mounted and equipped is in the field, and ready for action. On the eve of some desperate enterprise, such as giving orders to shoulder arms, it may be, there occurs a crisis, one of the accidents of war which no sagacity could foresee or prevent. A cloud rises and passes over the scene! Here an occasion occurs for the display of that greatest of all traits in the character of a commander, the tact which enables him to seize upon and turn to good account events unlooked for, as they arise. Now for the caution wherewith the Roman Fabius foiled the skill and courage of Hannibal. A retreat is ordered, and troops and general, in a twinkling, are found safely bivouacked in a neighboring grocery! But even here the general still has room for the exhibition of heroic deeds. Hot from the field, and chafed with the untoward events of the day, your general unsheathes his trenchant blade, eighteen inches in length, as you will well remember, and with an energy and remorseless fury he slices the water-melons that lie in heaps around him, and shares them with his surviving friends, Other of the sinews of war are not wanting here. Whiskey,

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that great leveller of modern times, is here also, and the shells of the water-melons are filled to the brim. Here again, is shown how the extremes of barbarism and civilization meet. As the Scandinavian heroes of old, after the fatigues of war, drank wine from the skulls of their slaughtered enemies, in Odin's Halls, so now our militia general and his forces, from the skulls of melons thus vanquished, in copious draughts of whiskey assuage the heroic fire of their souls, after the bloody scenes of a parade-day. But, alas, for this short-lived race of ours, all things will have an end, and so is it even with the glorious achievements of our general. Time is on the wing, and will not stay his flight; the sun, as if frightened at the mighty events of the day, rides down the sky, and at the close of the day, when "the hamlet is still,” the curtain of night drops upon the scene;

“And glory, like the Phoenix in its fires,
Exhales its odors, blazes, and expires !"

LXXXVIII.-WHO IS INDEPENDENT?

H. B. RHETT.

SIR, independence is a very imposing word—a stirring word, when appealing to that innate pride which, while it is the chief symbol of our fall, has also been the chief cause of glory and fame to our aspiring race. Yet, after all, who is independent in life? Who desires to be independent? What would existence be, without that mutual dependence which weaves for us the golden bonds of affection, and takes away half the weariness of life's pilgrimage? From whence arise all our sympathies, but from our capacity to serve and bless ? And to take from us the ability to receive and impart good, to be mutually dependent, is to pass over us the shade of moral annihilation. The same principles apply to nations, who are really neither beasts nor demons, but aggregates of human beings-brethren of the same human family. If uncontrolled by force, nations no more than individuals can be degraded by mutual intercourse. On the contrary, its inevitable tendency is to elevate them in the scale of social and moral excellence. What is foreign commerce but an exchange of equivalent productions? And in this exchange,

the one party is no more dependent than the other. Both are dependent; or, if you please, both are independent; inasmuch as they give full equivalent for what they receive.

If, at home, we subject and oppress the many for the aggrandizement and benefit of the few, it is but consistent that we should deal with other nations on no better principles. Sir, this is the policy that has made England great; but is it worthy of our imitation? Mark her attitude in the world. Nations in all quarters of the globe in military bondage to her-pushing her conquests along the Himmalaya Mountains-massacring the Chinese to protect her manufacture of opium-looking with avidity to central America and the West Indies, and seeking to exclude our commerce from the African seas, by claiming the right of search over our merchantmen, for the same unhallowed purposes of monopoly ; and on every border of our Union-in the East, in the West, in the South, on the ocean-we are assailed and insulted by her arrogant pretensions. Great she unquestionably is; and I, too, who look back to her as my father land with reverence, and not without affection, may be dazzled by her bright ascendency. Great, she unquestionably is; but she is also the greatest robber and oppressor that now controls the destinies of men. And where has all her greatness, and her glory, placed her people? Hear the tale which every wind, sweeping across the Atlantic, brings of their appalling condition. Bowed down with taxes, they work for life, and thank God for even so gracious a privilege. The barrack and the factory stand together; whilst famine, and its fierce attendant, crime, fill her poor-houses and prisons. Day and night, the unceasing moan arises for bread; and should nature rebel, and the people rise, the dragoon's sabre settles the right.

It is not by following England, and the great nations of the old world-leprosied all over and festering in the abuse of ages-that we are to build up American prosperity and greatness. Our institutions are based on far different principles from theirs. We affect not power, but right; we aim not to be great, but to be happy and free. We must not look back, but forward, and press on under the guidance of the great principle of Christian morality, on which our institutions are based, to the mighty destiny which awaits us.

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LXXXIX.-CONDITION OF INSOLVENT DEBTORS.

HENRY CLAY.

AND when is it that we are called upon to retrace our steps, and to subvert the whole system of beneficent measures adopted at the extra session, by beginning with the repeal of the bankrupt law, and ending with that of the law for the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands? Three days only before the commencement of the operation of the bankrupt law! Should the work of destruction be accomplished, they will not be days of grace and mercy, but of cruelty and inhumanity. Yes, the Senate, which has twice, after an interval of sufficient length to insure the fullest consideration, deliberately pronounced its judgment in favor of this law, is now asked to reverse that judgment, to undo its own work, to deprive creditors of the great benefits which are secured to them, to let loose the rigors of the law upon honest debtors, and to replunge them in hopeless despair.

Their condition resembles that of innocent and unfortunate men, long and unjustly incarcerated within the dark walls of a jail. Its door is half open; they are rushing towards it, pale, emaciated, and exhausted; the light of heaven has once more beamed upon their haggard faces, and once more they begin to breathe the cold pure air of an uncontaminated atmosphere. At this instant of time, the Senate is called upon to drive them back to their gloomy and loathsome cells, and to fling back that door upon its grating hinges. And I am invited to unite in this work of inhumanity and cruelty. I have not the heart to do it. I have not the hand to do it. I cannot, I will not do it.

XC. REMEMBRANCE OF WRONGS.

RUFUS CHOATE.

We are above all this. Let the highland clansman, half naked, half civilized, half blinded by the peat smoke of his cavern, have his hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep the keen, deep, and poisonous hatred, set on fire of hell, alive if he can; let the North American Indian have