see all nature smile around him; while the wretch, whose interrupted slumber is broken by the gnawings of remorse or the pangs of guilt, will see the image of his own internal trouble and horror reflected from every object that meets his view. But how are we to secure this morning salute of a smile?

This question was answered for me by a peasant in Switzerland, when I visited that country in 1772. I could not help being struck, on my first entrance into it, with the picture of national happiness which every where presented itself Wherever I turned, I heard the hum of cheerful industry ;-wherever I looked, I saw the glow of health, and smile of content. If I entered a town, I heard, on every hand, the rattling of the hammer and clinking of the trowel, bearing witness to the progress of wealth and population: If I sauntered into the country, I heard the rosy daughters of industry, singing aloud to their spinning wheels; or saw them engaged in that sweetest occupation of primeval innocence, pruning and dressing their luxuriant vines, and teaching the young tendrils how to shoot; if I climbed a mountain, I saw it animated, from its base to its summit, with sprightly flocks, that seemed to be conscious of the general happiness of the country, and to partake in it; skipping from rock to rock, with astonishing agility, and browzing briskly and cheerfully, on the scanty productions of the soil; while their shepherd master, with his Alp-horn to his lips, and peace and gladness at his heart, poured from the echoing mountains into the valley that smiled below, the simply wild and touching notes of his favourite air, the rans des vaches.

Affected almost to tears of pleasure, by this finished scene of earthly happiness, as I stood looking at it, from the cottage door of a venerable old peasant, I asked him how it happened, that in a climate so little favoured by na

ness ?

ture, and the far greater part of whose soil was surrendered to mountains and hopeless sterility, I witnessed all this peace, all this content, all this glowing, smiling happi "The answer is very short and easy," said this rural philosopher, pleased with the interest which he saw in my face; "all that you see is the effect of industry, protected and not encumbered by government; for industry is the mother of virtue and health, and these are the parents of happiness; as idleness is the mother of vice and disease, the immediate parent of misery. Behold the whole secret of the health, innocence, and peace of Switzerland !"

LESSON X.

Agrippina returning to Rome with the Ashes of her dead Lord, Germanicus.

AGRIPPINA pursued her voyage without intermission. Neither the rigour of the winter, nor the rough navigation in that season of the year, could alter her resolution. She arrived at the island of Corcyra, opposite the coast of Calabria. At that place she remained a few days, to appease the agitations of a mind pierced to the quick, and not yet taught in the school of affliction, to submit with patience. The news of her arrival spreading far and wide, the intimate friends of the family and most of the officers who had served under Germanicus, with a number of strangers from the municipal towns, some to pay their court, others carried along with the current, pressed forward in crowds to the city of Brundusium, the nearest and most convenient port. As soon as the fleet came in sight of the harbour, the sea-coast, the walls of the city, the tops of

houses, and every place that gave even a distant view, were crowded, with spectators. Compassion throbbed in every breast. In the hurry of their first emotions, men knew not what part to act; should they receive her with acclamations? Or would silence best suit the occasion ? Nothing was settled. The fleet entered the harbour, not with the alacrity usual to mariners, but with a slow and solemn sound of the oar, impressing deeper melancholy on every heart.

Agrippina came forth, leading two of her children, with the urn of Germanicus in her hand, and her eyes stedfastly fixed on that precious object. A general groan was heard. Men and women, relations and strangers, all joined in one promiscuous scene of sorrow, varied only by the contrast between the attendants of Agrippina and those who now received the first impression.-The former appeared with a languid air, while the latter yielding to the sensation of the moment, broke out with all the vehemence of recent grief..

LESSON XI.

The Pleasures of Snow.

I NEVER see a heavy fall of snow, like that which I have been, now, observing, through my window, ,for several hours, without feeling an instinctive flow and gaiety of spirits. This is, probably, the effect of an early association of ideas, which the mind still makes without my perceiving it. For in my young days a snow was the constant signal for an hundred different, delightful amusements; amusements, which are now nearly out of use, perhaps from the much greater infrequency of the invi

ting cause. Fifty years ago, in such a snow as this, which is already nine inches deep, all the young folks were leaping and bounding with anticipated delight, and could not be kept within doors even until the snow had ceased to fall. The little children of four or five years old would clear a place in the yard and prop a plank or an old door to catch snow birds, pulling the trigger, alternately, by a string which was conducted through the window into the house : then they would roll balls in the yard-wonder at their rapid and unaccountable accumulation-and contend who should make the largest. The country boys and girls would wage the joyous war of snow-ball-or unite in a party of sleighing—or run races, by sliding on planks over the frozen surface of the snow, down the long slope of a hill side. Dreadful at such a season, was the carnage among the tenants of the air, the field and the foresttraps, snares, springs in a thousand forms contributed to their destruction, and the huntsman followed on the track of the flying game, with a certainty and a perseverance which no speed, nor cunning, nor strength could elude.

But it was during the fall itself of a cold and driving snow, while the whole creation without was shivering and shrinking from the blast and drift, and filling the air with the many-toned expression of their sufferings, that the highest interest was excited in all who were capable of feeling and reflecting. It was then while the flocks and herds were driven to their folds and stalls, and the wind was heard to whistle on the outside of those walls which it could not pierce, that we became sensible of the superior intelligence of man, and learned to appreciate a thousand conveniences and comforts which that intelligence had spread around him.

Then, too, it was with the family drawn together at at night in a friendly circle, around the blazing and cheerful hearth, with a brown mug of that simple, rural beve

rage, the juice of the apple, placed before them-that I first learned to estimate the social character of man, and tasted the pure charms of virtuous and instructive conversation. Such was the time for innocence to come forth, without blush or tremour, and show her thoughts; for strong, uncultured sense to exhibit his muscles; and for rural learning to open its legendary lore. Conversations like those, I do not hear in the present time. I hear, indeed, more flippancy and smartness, perhaps more wit and decoration; but I hear much less of solid and useful sense; and above all much less of unaffected nature. For it was nature; it was this arch enchantress that infused the inimitable resistless charm. Then, no cavilling hypercritick stood by, to catch the speaker before he tripped; of course no one thought himself obliged to " speak by the card," lest equivocation should undo him." Then, no witling stood, with uplifted gig to hit the first hairbreadth opening that presented itself, and, thus, to arrest the useful progress of the conversation. No snarling satirist, or turner of invectives, crouched, like a tiger, to seize his wandering and unsuspecting prey. No malignant demon of slander haunted the circle to gather materials for tomorrow's tale. No all was freedom, and ease and confidence and friendship; and "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth spoke," without fear and without restraint.

LESSON XII.

Comparative view of the rising and declining generations of America,

LET the man who stands upon the isthmus between these two generations of Americans, between that which