ruling the world, who stripped the aged philosopher of his dignities, and emoluments. Meanwhile, Justice, Humanity, Science, and Excellence, through the length and breadth of Europe, indignantly bewailed and loudly honoured the victim of Ignorance and Anarchy. And so, glorified as much by the censure of the wicked, as the praises of the good, Galvani died, on the 5th of November, 1798.

WASHINGTON.

How might a Briton bless thee without blame,— Yet how deny thy worth his honest praise?Great, virtuous, modest, whose unspotted name Is stamp'd in gold upon the rolls of fame,

Whose brow is circled by her brightest bays,Part of thy glory still let England claim,

Her foe she pardons, while she loves her son: Into what times, what regions shall we roam To find thy peer,-Leonidas in fight,

Pure Cincinnatus, meek retiring home,

Fabius the wise, or Cato the upright?—

Nature hath cull'd the best of Greece and Rome, And moulding all their virtues into one,

Gave to her infant world a Washington.

It is proverbial, that we have most quarrels with our nearest, and are most jealous of our dearest : and certainly Britain and the United States, standing to each other in the relations of an aged mother and a child come to maturity, furnish national illustration of its truth. Still, on the whole, we kindly regard each other: the democratic spirit of our wayward offspring, even if so deeply rooted now as it was formerly, cannot quite burst the bonds of natural affection such apples of discord as our own most feeble colonial policy has suffered to ripen on the bough, still need be gathered by neither, if both will but for a time forbear. Here indeed is a legitimate field for conciliation, where none threatens, and where all will agree to an amicable arrangement of differences: there are no claims on either side which need be accounted irreconcileable, no ἀνήκεστα κακά: and the question of a few leagues of territory is not one, which, all other causes being absent, ought to embroil two great nations in the horrors of war. America looks back with pride upon the past glories of Great Britain, which a better government might still restore, and we look forward with complacence to their reflection in our As for determinate enmity, the better majority

son.

of Americans would no more rejoice in the ruin of Old England, than we should to hear that a mighty angel had unloosed the chains of the Atlantic, and commanded it to drown the fair cities of the West. In origin, language, religion, and the foundations of law we are one; and though the birthright was seized too soon, we can pardon the young heir's wantonness, although we rebuke it.

George Washington came of a family, which had settled in Virginia from England. Waiving altogether the question of the original justice of his cause, there can be but one opinion of his great qualities, and commanding talents. He was brave, patriotic, and discreet; of high principle and strict integrity; eminently a lover of domestic quiet, and striving for retirement, in the midst of a career which might have made weaker minds ambitious; "non sibi sed toti," was the rule of his life; he, if any one, well merited the " Pater patriæ" to be graven on his statue: he, if any one, was worthy of the golden praise, "First in peace, First in war, and First in the hearts of his countrymen."

The home government of Washington was eminently one not of force but of persuasion; like eastern shepherds, he did not drive, but lead: in fact, his authority extended over a country too young to be wisely ruled by strength of arm; the muscles of his power were infantile, and would have been weakened by a strain: yet with this habitual suaviter in modo, we find him on all

just occasions fortiter in re: his concessions were dignified, and his compulsions generous: he knew how to distinguish liberality from liberalism, and conciliation from cowardice. But in another hemisphere how diverse, yet in some apparent similarity, must run the tale: the nerves of a Hercules among nations are touched so tenderly that they become irritable; the government of a millenarian country so mildly insinuates its wishes, and so readily retracts them, that concession has long ago sunk into meanness, and moderation into pusillanimity: while by casual fits of misdirected obstinacy, ever the attribute of disappointed feebleness, the thunders of state are hurled against some friendless though not sinless poor, where they ought to have stricken the guiltier foreheads of the mighty. The lion is a culprit, and the mouse a victim. Humble asses, not prouder lords of the forest, are found to be the sacrilegious cause of plague, for having eaten churchyard thistles. "By precept and example too" the powerful, perhaps unconsciously, instil principles which strike at the roots of social order, and then marvel that their lessons are practised by scholars all too diligent. The would-be great, and the shouldbe wise rear a hopeful nursery, and then with parricidal hand turn against their own offspring. Truly, it is never too late to mend: but with amendment, confession from the lip, and repentance from the heart should ever walk companions,-yea, more,that humility which takes "a lower place," and so